


He's Miss United States (He'll Punch You in the Face)

by XaviaAndromedovna



Series: More Like the Mr. Beacon Hills Supernatural Community Pageant, Right Derek? Derek, Am I Right? [1]
Category: Miss Congeniality (Movies), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (not by choice), Alternate Universe - Miss Congeniality Fusion, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Bombing, Crack and Angst, Drag Queen Stiles Stilinski, F/M, FBI Agent Derek Hale, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Femmephobia, Frank being creepy, Future Fic, Love Triangles, M/M, Makeover, Miss United States, Outing, Public Humiliation, Trans Character, Transphobia, Undercover Missions, Werewolf Sheriff Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22371025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XaviaAndromedovna/pseuds/XaviaAndromedovna
Summary: It's either desk duty and a review hearing, or...Stiles goes undercover as Gracie Lou Freebush from New Jersey at the Miss United States Pageant, with the help of his partner (who's enjoying this way too much), his long-distance banshee girlfriend, and his drag queen friends who are politely ignoring all the supernatural talk.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Lydia Martin, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Series: More Like the Mr. Beacon Hills Supernatural Community Pageant, Right Derek? Derek, Am I Right? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610398
Comments: 8
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was rewatching Miss Congeniality a couple months ago and got to the "sarcasm and a gun" line and the rest wrote itself. Took quite a few liberties to make it fit a) the switch to a guy being Gracie b) Teen Wolf canon and c) the mid-2010s, because this movie is now 20 years old hello yes I'd like to apply for retirement

“Absolutely not.”

Raf huffs impatiently as he usually does when reminded of Stiles’s existence but this time there’s a sinister grin behind it. “Luckily you don’t get much of a choice. Derek’s in charge of this case, and he chose you. Also, need I remind you you’re still on thin ice after the borscht incident?” Ah yes, how could he forget, it’s not like he got a fellow agent _sent to the hospital_ because he was trying to be a big damn hero or anything. Ever since he and Derek were officially hired on at the FBI, he’s felt like he’s had to prove himself as more than an uppity kid who got lucky. Derek of course fit like a glove despite being a fugitive on way more occasions than Stiles (including the time that proved Stiles’s mettle _in the first place_ , when he successfully finagled his way onto the search for alleged mass-murderer Derek “Kate Argent is the cause of 80% of my misfortune” Hale).

“Of course I haven’t forgotten the borscht incident,” Stiles snaps, adding a begrudging “sir” when Raf raises his eyebrows. “I just find it hard to believe that we have so few women on our team that literally any of them wouldn’t look better in a swimsuit.”

“Oh they would, but unfortunately for all of us, Corman is on mat leave, Ramirez doesn’t appear on film, and Disele is on another assignment.” Derek chooses that moment to walk in, knowing damn well it’ll give Raf a chance to walk away so Stiles can’t protest any more. “You’re the only one who fits the dress, Stiles. Excuse me.”

Stiles scoffs. “That’s great,” he calls after him even after he’s disappeared from sight. “Hey not like you care but I think it’s lowkey transphobic that your solution to that is man in a dress!” He turns an accusing eye and finger to Derek and his self-satisfied smirk. “You too, buddy. Seriously? I thought we got over the whole passionate dislike years ago.”

“Are you kidding?” Derek frowns, put out. “I’m doing you a favor here, Stiles. You have to go before the review board soon because of that stunt you pulled; they were gonna bench you outright.”

“Yeah, starting to think desk jockey would be better than this.” Derek lets out a very Derek sigh but before he can be the voice of reason Stiles rolls his eyes and gestures vaguely. “Okay fine, thank you for saving my career or whatever, but I just want it on record that I think this is the single worst idea you’ve ever had and that includes your entire stint as alpha.”

“Duly noted, now pack your shit, we’re going to Texas.”

“Yeehaw…”

~~~

Stiles and Lydia have been together for three years now, which is great. Stiles gets to have the literal girl of his dreams in his bed, and if middle school Stiles could see him now, he’d wet himself in several different senses. Ten-year plan accomplished. It’s great.

Well, of course, things aren’t _perfect_ , after all Lydia’s in Massachusetts most of the way through her Bachelor’s in Mathematics with a minor in Acoustics (or as Stiles calls it “banshee science”) and he’s in Virginia. But that works great for them, because sometimes when they spend too much time together they butt heads in ways that aren’t exactly productive. When they’re working side-by-side on a supernatural puzzle, they’re unstoppable, but the mundane stuff is taking a little more work than Stiles expected. Apparently relationships are hard, who knew?

Lydia is usually kept pretty separate from his work life given that she already has her fair share of high-stakes stressful situations as a banshee, but this case requires all hands on deck, and given the nature of this assignment, he’s fairly certain it’s an offer she can’t (or won’t) refuse. She answers the video chat without looking up from her physics homework. “Hey sweetie, sorry, I can’t talk long.”

“Oh that’s fine, just thought you’d want to talk to the new Miss New Jersey.”

She looks up at that and registers his resigned grin with a curious smile of her own. “Oh? And who would that be?”

“Well, it turns out that the current Miss New Jersey found herself in some hot water over a string of shall we say racially insensitive Tweets and the case we’re working allows us to plant her replacement.”

“Interesting, so who is she?”

“Well, babe, you’re looking at her. Say hello to Gracie Lou Freebush, my newest and most disconcerting alter ego.”

Her jaw physically drops. “You can’t be serious.”

“See, that’s what I said! But apparently _someone_ —"he turns around and gives Derek an exaggerated glare—“seems to think I’m the best option we’ve got in this situation, which means you have your work cut out for you on this mission, should you choose to accept it.”

“I…” She starts several sentences, none of which make it past an aborted breath. “I’m sorry, are you asking me to help you with a case?”

“Yes, Lydia, I am asking you for your unparalleled expertise in all things feminine and fashionable. I have two days to go from this,” he indicates, waving a frantic hand over his untucked button-up, disheveled hair, and 2-day-old stubble, “to a literal beauty queen and if anyone can do it, it’s you.”

“But… I mean… doesn’t the FBI have consultants and make-up departments for this sort of thing?”

“They do, which is why I’m calling you, the consultant we’ve chosen for this case. Lydia, c’mon, you were on the pageant circuit—”

“Yeah in elementary school!”

“Well that’s still more experience than most other people we can find on short notice, and frankly you’re the only one I trust my body with that wholeheartedly.” He winces at how cheesy that sounds but it seems to make her more amenable to the idea if the soft upturn of her lips is any indication. “Did I mention you’d have an unlimited budget and an entire team of people to boss around?”

“What? I’m sorry, I must be hearing the spirits, did you just say the actual three words every girl wants to hear?”

“You mean ‘an unlimited budget’? Yes I did.”

“Stiles, why didn’t you lead with that?! I’ll be on the next flight down!” Stiles punches the air with both fists in victory. “That’ll give us a day and a half to… oh my god we need to get you waxed, and fitted, and we need to find you a wig, and FUCK you need to learn how to walk in heels, not to mention how a pageant even works—Stiles, TWO DAYS?!”

“I know, I know, but Lydia I swear to God if you do this you will have even more of my eternal gratitude than I’ve already given you, not to mention Derek’s.”

“He’s right, Lydia,” Derek calls over his shoulder. “We need you.”

“Help me, Obi Wan, you’re my only ho!”

Lydia shakes her head in fond frustration. “I’m on my way, but Stiles, I have some general idea about making boys look like girls but you might need an expert’s opinion. In fact, if I’m in charge of this part of the operation, which, as a now official FBI consultant, I am,” she says with a hairflip, “then part of my staff demands are that you call the girls.”

Stiles pales a little at that. “Oh no, c’mon, they’ll never let me live it down!”

He sometimes forgets how terrifying a beaming Lydia can be. “Oh I’m counting on it!”

“Oh my God, I regret this already. What makes you think they’ll even come? Last time we got them involved in something was when they crashed a high school party and you drugged them with wolfsbane.”

“Okay but that was years ago, and they totally forgave you for that! Besides you know they’ve been dying to get you in a frock since you met them.”

Stiles leans back in his chair, hands behind his head, and stares at the ceiling, contemplating what atrocities he committed in a past life to deserve this. “How is this my life? Fine, I’ll call them, just get your cute little ass down to Texas before I decide Gracie Lou’s a butch.”

“Please, babe you are many things, but butch is not one of them. Love you!” She hangs up before he can issue an indignant response. Derek, the absolute dick, bursts out laughing.

“Love you too,” he says to an empty screen. He turns to face his traitor of a partner. “You’re getting mistletoe for Christmas I hope you know that.”

~~~

Stiles has faced down alphas and kanimas, oni and darachs, deadpools and dread doctors, hunters and serial killers. He has known fear and stood brave. The sight of his girlfriend flanked by two drag queens and a cadre of beauticians hero-striding into an airplane hangar has him wanting to run for the hills and never look back.

But he hasn’t seen Lydia in person in months so they hold each other tight when they come together. He greets Terry Yaki and Gloria Gayyynor incredulously yet warmly while Derek and Lydia hug politely.

“Guuurl,” Terry drawls, “do we have our work cut out for us!”

“You’re lucky you’re cute, muffin,” Gloria agrees. “Hopeless but cute, Terry look at her, she still thinks she can wear graphic tees, what _will_ we do with her?”

Terry throws up her hands with a cry. “Burn. It. All.”

Stiles laughs wryly. “You know this is just an assignment right, not an episode of _Queer Eye_?”

“HA, honey this is an episode of _Intervention_ , we’re gonna teach you to swish and hope to Our Goddess and Savior Beyoncé that enough sticks to give you a sense of fashion and self-respect.” Terry looks him up and down. “And some body, good Lorde, you’re still skin and bones. Who’s our foam person? Someone get this bitch some hips, stat!”

Lydia already deputized Terry and Gloria on the plane ride from New York that they managed to be on together, and the two queens get busy corralling the troops. Derek and Lydia wander back over from where they’ve privately been discussing the project. Derek tries and fails not to smile. “You ready for your close-up, Gracie Lou?”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“Yes,” Lydia clips. She and Derek lead him to the measuring station. “You will always answer ‘yes’, never ‘yeah’. Understood? Proper diction and grammar are paramount. These next couple days aren’t just an emergency beauty regimen, it’s also charm school, rehearsal, and character work. We need to make people believe that not only are you a woman, but you’re someone who could plausibly win a state pageant.”

Stiles immediately trips on a crack in the concrete.

Lydia and Derek share a look. “We’re screwed.”

In a movie montage, the makeover takes at most five minutes. Unfortunately for Stiles, he can’t fast-forward through the grueling two days of labor going into remolding his body and just pick out the quirky highlights.

“Eyebrows: there should be 2!”

“When was the last time you moisturized?!”

“She’s gonna need more than chicken cutlets, do you think we can get away with a full chestpiece?”

“Stiles, hold still or I’m shredding your comic collection.”

“Repeat after me: we DO NOT. CHEW. OUR ACRYLICS.”

Stiles is not exactly known for his ability to grow body hair, but he never realized quite how much he actually has until it’s all being yanked out of his pores. Lydia holds his hand throughout most of it, shaking her head at men and their low pain tolerance. The person waxing him releases his leg when the last stripe is gone. “Alright Stiles, we need you to take off your underwear for this next part.”

“Uhhhhhh… he’s kidding, right? Please tell me he’s kidding?”

“Stiles, sweetie,” Lydia coos in his ear. “You’re doing great, okay? It’s almost over.” She suddenly turns to the beautician with a menacing smile. “You’re gonna have to do front _and_ back for him.” Stiles blanches. “C’mon, underwear off, now.” Derek, summoned by Lydia, walks into the room right as Stiles finally draws up the courage to yank his underwear down in front of everyone. The werewolf bluescreens for two-and-a-half seconds.

“Nope, I’m out.”

“Derek, get back here! You need to hold him down for this part. You know how squirmy he can get.”

“I hate both of you so much right now, this isn’t funny! And can I just say you two are enjoying this way too mu—OOWWWWW MOTHERFUCKER!!!”

He put his foot down (pun intended) when it came to wearing heels, but the girls had plenty of work-arounds for his weak ankles and body mass distribution and ignored his protests, though it did require some hearty discussion.

“We can’t start him out in stilettos, Terry, even if the pun is hilarious. This is his first time in heels!”

“Actually, his second,” Lydia interjects, feigning boredom as she examines her nails but her shining eyes give her away. This was her when he _wasn’t_ pissing her off.

“Lydia! That was private! What, do you go around telling everyone kinky details about our sex life?”

“NO, but they have that context _now_ , genius.” Stiles stares into the non-existent camera of the sitcom that is his life.

Terry and Gloria are dying. “Somebody stop the straights, that’s too much!”

“Excuse you, I am a noted bisexual, thank you _very_ much! I didn’t parade a half-naked werewolf around my bedroom to extort my gay teammate who I kept asking if he found me attractive just to be called straight.” Those not in the know milling about look at him. “What? I just said I didn’t do that.”

“Smooth.”

“Yeah,” Derek adds. “Still a little bitter about that.”

“Note to self,” the dressmaker pinning him mutters just close enough for Stiles to hear. “The hot one’s a furry.”

Derek chokes from his chair in the corner and excuses himself. Stiles needed a good cackle.

On some level, Stiles knew that it took (some) girls longer to get ready because beauty takes time, but it didn’t hit him just how intensive grooming could be until it’s day two of his makeover and he’s _still_ in hair and make-up. They managed to track down a sensible wig in his natural hair color but even that requires more maintenance than he expected. By the time he’s finally tucked, frocked, and beat they only have an hour to get to the venue.

That said, coming out the bay doors surrounded by an entourage of technicians and approaching his jury of four makes him feel like a Hollywood starlet on the red carpet. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the way out and he doesn’t just look smoking hot, he looks like he could actually belong at a Miss United States pageant. Which is, of course, the goal. The shocked and awed faces of his girlfriend, his partner, and his drag mothers are just a satisfying perk. Terry whistles as Gloria dramatically collapses onto the asphalt, fanning herself. He doesn’t know how to process the fact that Lydia and Derek have the same penetrating stare, hers a mix of approval and satisfaction, his one of amusement, but both of them overwhelmingly _hungry_.

Naturally, he’s so focused on deciphering that look he trips in his too-high heels and lands flat on his unpadded ass.

Their laughter has died down finally by the time he makes it over to them. “Stiles,” Derek chimes in, “I’m so glad you’re doing this assignment.”

“Who’s Stiles, Derek?” He plasters a tensely fake smile on. “Clearly I’m Gracie Lou Freebush, AKA the alias you gave me that you better fucking use if you expect us to get away with this and not make the past 48 hours of torture in vain.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Lydia placates with condescension. She opens the car door for him. “After you, Gracie Lou.”

He flicks his hair back hoping she’ll catch the shade of him stealing one of her mannerisms. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: Turns out Gloria Hole is a real queen who exists, so I went back and made a different pun #whoops


	2. Chapter 2

When they arrive at the venue after dropping off the girls at the other side of the hotel Derek opens Stiles’s door for him and holds out an ostentatious hand. “Miss Freebush.”

“Fuck you, you’re lucky I need help standing up in these things.”

Derek gasps in mock scandal. “Is that any way for a lady to speak?”

Stiles throws down Derek’s hand when he’s out of the car and stomps ahead, trying to remember to ‘arch your back and lead with your hips’. “Derek, I’m in a dress, I have gel in my hair, my balls are _inside_ my body, I haven’t slept all night, I am starved, and I’m armed, don’t mess with me.” The brick path foils his plans of entering with his dignity, although he probably left that back in Virginia anyway. Derek steadies him, and they both studiously ignore that he leaves his hand on the small of Sti—Gracie Lou’s back.

They meet with the bigwigs before the introductory breakfast. Kathy Morningside is the type of woman who is very clearly used to getting her way because of how attractive she is and her imperious glare betrays a ruthlessness that has Stiles shrinking back instinctively. Her cohost Stan Fields is perfectly nice but is definitely the less dominant personality. “Mr. Hale,” Kathy greets with a handshake and a warmth that doesn’t quite thaw her eyes. “I’m glad to see you found a suitable contestant after all and didn’t go through with your cockamamie plan to install a man in our scholarship program.” She takes Stiles hand gracefully. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss…”

Stiles coughs and subconsciously deepens his voice, turning their grasp into a handshake. “Um, Mieczysław Stilinski, at your service, ma’am, but you can call me Stiles—actually, you can call me Gracie Lou Freebush.” Stan and Kathy stare at him in awe.

“My god…” Kathy whispers, releasing his hand and moving hers towards his face, about to touch but thinking better of it. “I demand to know who your stylist is, they have a promising career in pageantry.”

“She has an even more promising career in quantum physics but we can gush over my girlfriend later.” The four of them take a seat at the meeting table, some with more difficulty than others.

“While I admit the FBI has certainly pulled out all the stops making this convincing, I still don’t see why this is necessary. We get crackpot threats all the time; we’re not quite as popular as we used to be.”

“The Citizen is more than a crackpot,” Derek responds. “He’s responsible for several bombings across the country and our experts believe his last letter designates your beauty pageant as the next target.”

“It is a scholarship competition,” Kathy repeats for what sounds like the 12,342nd time in her life. She stands and Stiles tries not to laugh at the tiara in the poster behind her looking like it’s sitting on her head. “You may not take us very seriously, Mr. Hale, but we have a duty to protect the integrity of this program, and rigging the competition as your brief suggests is unfair to the young women in our program.”

“Yeah, well—“ Derek and Kathy glare at Stiles when he speaks up. He groans. “ _Yes_ , well, it’s also a little unfair for them to get blown up, and it’s _our_ duty to protect them from that.”

“Be that as it may, you can’t just coast along making a mockery of this institution.”

“We won’t,” Stiles assures her. “I’ll be on my best behavior; you won’t even remember I’m here. I’m ready to get down to business.”

Kathy clicks her tongue but shakes her head and calls for Frank over the intercom. “Fine, but I don’t like this. And do something about that voice, you sound like a taxi driver.” She and Stan take their leave while Derek and Stiles wait for Frank.

“Haha, real funny, y’know us Jersey girls are known for our light, delicate voices.”

“She’s not wrong though. You don’t have to sound ultra-feminine but you do still have to do something about it.”

“Jeesh, I know, Derek, okay the girls aren’t morons, they’ve been teaching me how to modulate my voice. I just don’t feel like wearing out my vocal cords doing it until I have to.”

Derek produces a sash and an earpiece from his tactical bag. “Well, just as long as we can hear you over the wire. The pin is a camera and mic. And here’s your earpiece—I swear to God if you take it out just to be petty I will storm in there and shove it back in your head.”

“Aww, he does care.”

Derek doesn’t dignify that with a response, which is for the best because Frank finally arrives. Stiles focuses on raising his pitch and smiling before waving coyly at Derek. “See you around, stud!”

~~~

Okay, Frank is totally at the top of Stiles’s suspect list because that dude is seriously creepy. He’s hit on every girl here and it took all of Stiles’s willpower not to break his fingers when they started moving lower and lower on his back. If he didn’t have to keep his cover he’d give the guy a piece of his mind and let him know exactly who he’s feeling up. The other girls give him looks of commiseration when Frank finally deposits New Jersey at table Alpha (he doesn’t snicker, he doesn’t snicker).

He hasn’t heard anything through the earpiece yet but maybe they’re just running late with the mic check. He focuses on the glorious plate of carbs in the center of the table and on catching up with the conversation between the other contestants. Miss Texas kinda reminds him of Lydia, not because of her hair (which, unlike Lydia’s, is red), but because she has the same calculating walls up under a sweet but no-nonsense veneer that takes him back to when they first started being in the same orbit. Miss Rhode Island is an absolute cinnamon roll who has already decided they’re best friends, and he tamps down the homesickness he gets when he hasn’t seen Scott in a while. He really needs to get back to Beacon Hills more often.

He’s not sure what the beef is between Hawaii and New York, but they don’t seem amused to be at the same table. It strikes him then that his usual personality is probably not ‘Gracie Lou Freebush’ material, but he can do this. Sure it’s his first deep undercover assignment and he has a hard enough time making friends as it is, but unlike high school he isn’t trying to get people to notice him. If anything, he would like to disappear into the shadows so he can focus on looking the part, which is hard enough. He’s spared from having to make too much small talk by Kathy and Stan beginning their opening speech.

Suddenly, his ear pops like someone opened a dank meme directly in his brain.

“JESUS CHRIST!”

He looks around from the floor to see that everyone in the room is staring straight at him. Great. So much for blending in.

“I… hi, sorry, I uhh, I took a bite of my bagel and forgot to… pray.” He gets into a kneeling position and ignores Derek muttering over the mic. “Ohhhkay, Dear Jesus,” he calls loudly. “Please forgive me for not praying before I had a bite of my bagel and shmear. Thank you very much. I mean— Amen.” The awkward chorus of ‘amen’s around him while he gets back into his chair means he might have dodged the bullet, although he now probably has a reputation as one of Those Bible Thumpers who give Christians everywhere a bad name.

Mercifully he makes it through the breakfast without further incident, but now the real training begins. He has to learn an entire dance routine. In heels. This will all end in tears. He manages to be allowed to stay in the back row for the performance but he’s still dreading having to get on stage and dance in front of the whole country. In fact, getting on stage at all was never exactly in his life’s plan, but here we are. When they finally reach break, he sits by the wall, tears off his rehearsal heels, and guzzles his water bottle. One of the girls, Pennsylvania according to her sash, sits down next to him. “That’s quite a workout.”

Stiles snorts. “You can say that again. My joints do not bend that way.”

She removes her ponytail and adjusts her long, black curls before putting her hair back up. “Yeah, and good luck trying to keep a tuck, am I right?”

Stiles tries (and fails) not to let water drip out of his mouth in his surprise. “W-what do you mean?”

PA leans in conspiratorially, although all but a handful of the other girls have already cleared out. “C’mon girl, I clocked you the second you stumbled in here. Don’t worry, no one else seemed to notice, but either you’re a man in a dress trying to confirm literally every transphobic fearmongering thing conservatives say about us or you’re a baby tran and us tall girls need to stick together.”

 _Shit._ Of all the things the team has prepared for, they had yet to come up with a convincing backstory if he got called out the first freaking morning. “Uh… well—”

By some miracle or deep magic, Lydia descends upon the room like the goddess she is and saves Stiles from himself. “Gracie, sweetie, there’s no time to lollygag, we have to get you into hair and makeup.” She must pick up on Stiles’s frantic face journey trying to communicate how fucked he is because she extends a hand to PA. “Who’s your new friend?”

PA takes her hand. “Hi, I’m Janessa.”

“Lydia.”

“And I’m Gracie, but Lydia already said that.” Stiles rubs his hand along the back of his neck and tries not to dislodge his wig in the process. “Lydia, I was just talking to Janessa about the fact that she and I were both assigned male at birth and why I personally am in the competition.” He winces at having outed Janessa to Lydia within two seconds of meeting each other, but desperate times are upon them and at least he confirmed what Janessa already knew so it’s more a gesture of solidarity than anything. He hopes.

Lydia doesn’t miss a beat. “Ah, so she knows about your twin.”

Twin, that’s good, he can roll with that. “No, actually, we hadn’t gotten that far. Lydia is my sister’s girlfriend and stylist.” Lydia raises an eyebrow at that bold choice. “She’s the real contestant. But…” he sighs for effect. Say what you will about his stint as a trickster spirit, but it gave him great acting chops. “Gracie is really sick and can’t compete, but she really needs the money to pay the hospital bills, and, well, I fit the dress. Kinda. Besides I’ve been watching her in pageants since we were in diapers and between that and Lydia’s impeccable talents I thought, how hard could it be? Very very hard, it turns out, excruciatingly hard, I had no idea. But when she heard that the first Miss New Jersey was out and the runner-up was in, she begged me to go in her place. So, here I am.”

Lydia and Stiles both hold their breaths as they wait for Janessa to respond. This conversation could make or break this whole operation and it’s not even 10am.

They must pull it off because Janessa takes his hand. “Thank you for telling me that. That’s a very noble thing for you to do. It makes my life harder, but your secret’s safe with me, umm… what _is_ your name if you’re not Gracie?”

He fumbles for an excuse not to tell her, then remembers a conversation he had with a trans guy who works in accounting. “It’s easier if people don’t know that name, you know how it is. Once they find it out, they might start calling you by it.”

Janessa laughs sardonically. “Ain’t that the truth, don’t have to tell me twice.” She stands and offers Stiles a boost up, which he takes gratefully. “I’ll see you around. Gracie.”

“Right back at ya!” He smiles even when she’s turned away. “Oh man, I’m going to the Bad Place for sure.”

~~~

When Janessa is out of sight Lydia drags him by the ear to the safe room. Derek and the rest of their team start catcalling him. “Yeah, yeah, get it out now, boys, you know I just saved your mission ten times over so I’ll take the compliment.”

“Excuse you,” Lydia scoffs. “ _I_ just saved your mission ten times over, and you’re welcome. But seriously, you couldn’t think up a backstory until just now?”

“I didn’t think I’d need it! I prefer to think you did such an amazing, immaculate job that no one in their right mind would even question it. I just, y’know, wasn’t expecting someone to immediately call how bullshit this whole situation is. Lesson learned.”

Lydia shakes her head and kisses his lips, drawing more commotion from the other people in the room.

“Alright,” Stiles claps. “What’ve we got?”

“Well, so far suspects include Fields, Morningside, her assistant Tobin, and Pennsylvania.”

Stiles frowns. “Why’s she a suspect?”

“Because she clocked you. What else does she notice?”

“Okay, well what’s our case for the others? I mean I have no trouble believing Frank’s sketchy enough to pull it off.”

“We’re running background checks on everyone now; we won’t know more for a while. We’re a bit suspicious about Fields’s announcement that he’s retiring, but so far we’ve got nothing useful.”

“Perfect.” No motive, no connections, no signs of sabotage, Stiles doesn’t even know what this has to do with… “Hey I just realized something. Why is this our case?” The room goes quiet. “I mean isn’t our specialty a little more… niche?”

Clonsky, a vampire from Oklahoma, looks at Derek, who shrugs. “We have reason to believe the Citizen is tied to Monroe.”

“Uhh, since when? That wasn’t in the briefing.”

Clonsky clears his throat. “It wasn’t in _your_ briefing. Honestly I’m kinda surprised you didn’t ask sooner, but we were hoping you wouldn’t put that together until you were on-site.”

Stiles looks at Derek, who isn’t looking at him. “Okay, why was I left in the dark about this? Derek, what don’t you want me to know?”

Derek doesn’t look up. “That was Raf’s call. I told him it’d backfire but he insisted.”

He stomps over to Derek. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“There was another attempt,” Clonsky answers for him. “In Beacon Hills.”

“Another attack.” Stiles flops into the open chair next to him. He stares at his hands. Another attack. “My dad told him not to tell me.”

“He and Scott told all of us not to tell you.”

He is surprised to realize that came from Lydia. He looks up at her, the words barely coming out. “You knew too?”

Lydia closes her eyes. “I was in Beacon Hills when you called.” He’s having a hard time breathing, but it’s not a panic attack (yet), it’s a wave of anger. She continues on quickly. “Everyone’s fine. Stiles? Look at me.” He does, after a moment. “Everyone’s going to be fine. They caught it in time. They weren’t able to get any clues about the Citizen but they diffused the bomb in time.”

“Where was the letter? Did you all hide that too?”

Derek speaks up finally. “It wasn’t our case. Once they had a guess that it was something supernatural they passed it on to McCall and he had the pack deal with it off the books, just in case. And it was fine. We knew if you knew you’d wanna be on the next flight home and we needed you here once we saw the next letter.”

Clonsky’ phone goes off so he excuses himself into the hallway, probably wanting to get as far away from this conversation as possible. Stiles shakes his head, frustrated but admittedly not surprised that his pack lied to him about this, until something clicks in what Derek said. “Wait, you got the Miss United States letter before the Beacon Hills bomb was supposed to go off?”

Derek’s eyes widen. “We got it the same day.”

Stiles stands up suddenly, going over to his laptop. “That doesn’t fit the pattern, usually he waits a week to send the letter to make sure the previous one went off, why was this one rushed? I knew there was something fishy about the linguistic scheme in the code, it doesn’t read like any of the other letters.”

Clonsky re-enters the room. “That’s not all that’s fishy; they found DNA—definitely not human, and female.”

Stiles and Derek share a look. “I think we’re dealing with a copycat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this headcanon that after his first name literally saved his existence on this plane, he became a little more proud of it and started using it when he wanted to look professional.


	3. Chapter 3

He’s stewing silently in the chair as the girls get him ready for the photo shoot. He didn’t want to fight about it right now because deep down he knows Lydia just did it to protect him, but that doesn’t change the fact that he feels very betrayed. “Stiles, I know you’re mad at me, but frown lines make my job more difficult.” He relaxes his face until he feels as blank as his features. “Everyone’s okay, I would have told you if they weren’t.”

“And if I didn’t ask? Would you have told me at all?”

“Of course,” Lydia responds, a smidge too fast. “Eventually.”

He can see Terry and Gloria give each other a look in the mirror. “We’re gonna go see if we can find more highlight.” The quick click of their heels accentuates the loud whispers of “gurl, run!”

“Do you all really have that little faith in me?”

“On the contrary, we knew you had your hands full with the mafia job, and then when this came up, we couldn’t let you get distracted. We know you’re at your best when you feel needed, but you were needed here more.”

“Yeah well I don’t feel very needed right now, in fact I feel like something you all have to manage.”

She side-eyes him in the mirror as she slides a bobby pin into place. “You know that’s not true.”

“Do I? Look I’m not gonna apologize for loving my friends and family enough to drop everything for them.”

“No one’s asking you to.”

“It’s just, you know this is one of my worst fears: that something’ll happen to them while I’m gone and there’s nothing I can do to help them.”

“You were helping them by letting them handle it themselves. Have a little faith in _us_. Contrary to what high school may have made us think, the weight of the world doesn’t have to be on your shoulders every waking moment.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“ _Yes._ ”

He snorts, matched by Lydia’s own smile. “ _Yes._ Perhaps you’re right.”

She kisses the top of his head and steps out of his space. “You’re all set.”

He stands and tries to walk. “Whoa, okay, yeah, I can’t do this, hold on.” He unstraps his left and right thigh guns and hands them to Lydia. He also takes out his sidearm for good measure. And the other one for balance. He’s still keeping his ankle gun though.

Lydia raises her eyebrows. "What, no armored car?"

He tosses his hair back. "It's in my other ensemble." He tries walking again. “Okay, much better. No wonder girls are so angry—you can’t hide anything in a dress.” He’s never been so appreciative of pockets.

~~~

Janessa sits next to him on the bus ride back to the hotel. “So, I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of signing us up to room together.”

“Oh! Uh, thanks?” He tries to hide the panic in his voice. “Any particular reason?”

“I don’t wanna take my chances that one of the other girls will be transphobic, and I figured you’d want to be free to be yourself in your own damn room. Win-win!”

He has to admit, it’s sound logic, but he knows Derek will have something to say about it, and he can’t exactly blame him. Until then, though, he’ll have to play along and see where this goes. “Sounds like a plan! Thank you, that’s very sweet of you.”

“My pleasure!”

When they get back to the room, Stiles immediately tears his wig off and starts wiping down his face, while Janessa begins a more complicated routine. They talk a bit about the pageant circuit and their families (as much as Stiles can without giving anything away and while remembering his non-existent twin sister), but they’re both exhausted and Janessa is out before he knows it. Just as his head hits the pillow, he hears a knock on the screen door.

“Not. Happening.”

The knocking is more insistent.

“Derek, I swear to God, you will let me sleep.” He doesn’t hear anything for a minute, but then the unmistakeable sound of claws on glass jolts him out of bed. “Okay, okay, I’m coming, fuck!” He wraps himself in a blanket, throws his wig on haphazardly and throws open the screen door. “What?!” he whisper-shouts.

“You don’t have a phone and you took your earpiece out.”

“Yeah, I was fucking sleeping, sue me. What do you want?”

“Lydia needs to see you; we need to prep you for tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on, can’t we do it in the morning?”

“We’re already on a tight schedule, Stiles, make yourself presentable and let’s go.”

“Ugggghhhh, you’re the worst.”

“I’ll sneak you a cookie.”

“Two cookies, and they better not be sugar-free.”

When he arrives, the girls lead him through his last fitting in the evening gown. “Suck it in, sweetie, beauty is pain.”

“Yeah, a pain in my ass.”

“Write that down, Gloria, our Gracie’s a bottom!”

“I— you know what, I’m not engaging.”

“Wise,” Lydia interjects. “Because I’m not above settling the debate.”

Derek rolls his eyes from the pillar he’s leaning against and mutters something to himself. Out loud, he asks Lydia, “why am I here?”

“I’m assuming to help me brainstorm a talent,” Stiles responds for her.

Lydia looks at him in dread. “What do you mean?”

“I mean a talent, for the talent competition, that I need a talent for.”

Lydia drops the brush she was running through the wig. “Talent?! Nonono, STILES, you said makeover and training, you said nothing about providing a TALENT! Since when does Miss United States even have a talent portion, I thought only Miss America did that.”

“Apparently it’s new as of a couple years ago, I don’t know, all I know is I need a talent and I can’t exactly just go on stage and suck my own dick or thr—”

Derek does an actual spit-take.

“Yeah, laugh it up furball, my only other talent is shooting people with wolfsbane, okay I’ve gotten very good at that, so keep your comments to yourself over there.”

Once Derek recovers his breathing capabilities he saunters over, pointedly ignoring whatever Terry is whispering to Gloria. “Is being annoying a talent? Because if so you’d win hands down.”

“That’s it!” Lydia shouts triumphantly. “I know just the annoying habit of yours to exploit for this.” She whips out her phone and calls Stan. “Hi Stan, we’ve figured out S—Gracie Lou’s talent, I’ll email you the program notes. You too, night!” She hangs up and dials another number. “Hello room service? Hi this is Lydia Martin in Room 347, I’’ll need a variety of wine glasses, pitchers of water, and some handbells for tomorrow. Maybe a rolling table. Outstanding, thank you!”

“Seriously, Lydia, _wine glasses_?” Derek’s exasperated scowl makes Stiles all the more on board with this plan. “You know I hate when he does that, it fucks with my hearing.”

“I know, it fucks with everyone’s hearing, but it’s the best we’ve got. Besides, if there is a supernatural threat, shouldn’t we draw it out? Or at least see who could be a target?”

“Yeah, and piss them off in the process.”

“We all have to make sacrifices for the job,” Stiles intones gleefully.

“Speaking of,” Gloria adds, pulling the dress’s corset strings tight. “Stop breathing. Oxygen is for quitters.”

~~~

They spend some time picking a song for Stiles to play—settling on the _Harry Potter_ theme—and Terry says she has just the costume (“thank goodness we’re the same size. Well, dress size.”) By the time Derek escorts Stiles back to his hotel room, nautical dawn has already begun and the black of the night sky is beginning to turn a navy blue.

“Hey so uh, did you know I’m rooming with Miss Pennsylvania?”

“Yeah, I heard about that. You’re right, it’s a little off, we’ll look into it. But if you trust her, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Yeah she seems harmless, just in need of a friend. Which, by the way, you’ve been a shitty one. I’m still mad at you for not telling me about the Beacon Hills bomb.” 

“Sorry. We did what we thought was best, and we were correct, okay? No harm, no foul.”

“Just stop leaving me out of shit, you know it gives me a complex.”

“I know. Although maybe if you stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, I won’t have to keep you out of things that’ll hurt you for no reason.”

“You know we’re the same rank in the pack, right? I’m not your pet human.”

“You are when I’m in charge of the mission and your survival is my responsibility. Do you really think Scott would ever speak to me again if something happened to you?”

“Fair enough.”

They walk in comfortable silence for another minute before the night air starts to make him shiver.

“I told you to put on real clothes before we left your room.”

“Yeah well my cover doesn’t exactly give me a lot of comfortable options.” Derek shrugs in agreement. “This nighty makes my ass look amazing though.” He glances over, and sure enough, Derek is staring at his ass. “Ah-hah! I knew it! I thought I was just making it up but you’ve totally been checking me out all day!”

“Shit,” Derek mutters.

“Really, Derek? I expected this sort of thing from Clonsky maybe, but who knew you were such a perv.”

“I wasn’t—it—I just…” He almost doesn’t hear it. Almost. “You’ve looked really pretty today, that’s all.”

Stiles stops in his tracks, jaw wide, a strange noise making its way out of his throat. “Oh my god. Derek!”

“What?” Derek tries for nonchalant, which is an interesting tactic from him. “You’re hot, you knew this already.”

“Uh, NO, I didn’t, or did you miss the part where Lydia constantly has to reassure me that our relationship isn’t one season-long episode of _Punk’d_?”

“Y’know, Stiles, if anything comes out of this op, I really hope it’s that you gain confidence in your appearance.”

“Well I’ll be damned.” Stiles steps in closer before he can think about it. “You think I’m goooorgeous,” he singsongs. “You want to huuuuug me, you want to kiiiiss me, you want to—”

Derek doesn’t back down, taking a step forward. “Pretty sure Lydia would scream my name if I did that.”

Stiles, never one to lose gay chicken, takes another step, cocky smirk firmly planted. “I could scream your name if you’d like, now that I know you’ve been _checking me out this whole time_!”

Derek’s face is inches from his. “What can I say, you fill out a dress.”

“Mhmm, sure Jan.” They stare at each other for far longer than is friendly, and it makes Stiles feel something he thought he’d left in California. Derek seems to feel the shift, but doesn’t move away.

“You should go inside,” he whispers.

“Yeah, I probably should.”

Derek puts a hand on his cheek. Just as he’s about to go in for the kiss… he pulls a chocolate bar out of his pocket and takes a huge bite. “Night Stiles.”

“Wooooow. Fuck you, Derek, you know dogs really shouldn’t eat chocolate!”

“See you tomorrow!”

Stiles shakes his head with a grumble and heads back into the room. Lucky for everyone he’s used to insomnia because otherwise this’d be impossible. He wants to settle into bed, but as soon as the screen door closes, Janessa is up. “Gurl. Spill.”

“Holy shit, I thought you were asleep.”

“I could say the same to you, but then you ran off with your mystery man!”

“Aw Hell, you saw that?”

“Absolutely. What’s his name?”

Stiles groans, stuffing his face into his pillow. “Derek.” Knowing the wolf probably turned around at the sound of his name, Stiles decides to have a little fun. “He’s been obsessed with me since I was in high school, he used to hang around outside the locker room all the time.”

“Eww! You should report him!”

Stiles laughs. “Tried that—thrice—never seemed to stick. He’s harmless really, a big softie, just annoying and _overprotective_!”

Janessa laughs awkwardly. “Why’d you say it like that?”

“No reason. That’s just how I talk.”

~~~

If he had had any sleep in the past 72 hours, perhaps he would have remembered that borrowing an outfit from Terry was about as good a decision as attacking a supercharged werewolf with a baseball bat. But he didn’t, and his life is already one giant cosmic joke so this may as well happen.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“It’s either this or you go naked, henny.” Stiles may need to be reminded why they’re still friends. Terry’s enjoying this way too much. She’s holding an orange and green and white Swiss maid’s outfit, complete with ruffles, complicated lacing, poofy shoulders, and miniskirt.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“Oh!” She grins evilly. “Right here.” She produces long white knee-high stockings.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s not?” she drips with feigned innocence.

“I swear to God if you’ve had sex in this thing…”

“You already know the answer to that question, Gracie Lou, just accept your fate.”

An hour and a half later he’s been secured into the surprisingly comfortable outfit, practiced his solo, and been through hair and makeup. What he hasn’t done is see Lydia around. “Hey Derek?” Stiles quietly asks the wall.

Clonsky comes through his earpiece, mouth full. “Derek’s not here.”

“Well where is he?”

“I don’t know, him and Lydia took off about an hour ago.”

So much for keeping him in the loop. “Did they say why?”

Clonsky snorts. “Does he ever?”

Before Stiles can freak out, an ASM directs him to the stage. Apparently it’s show time.

He wheels his cart onto the stage and brushes off the raucous laughter of the audience. He does a quick pitch test, which creates feedback in the microphone, causing everyone to wince. He puts some more water in the glass (which looks suspiciously like it’s been drunken out of) and tests it again. It emits a much more pleasant frequency, and he centers himself. He can do this.

He moistens his fingers and begins playing “Hedwig’s theme” while glancing out into the audience every once in a while to scope out the auditorium. Nothing too suspicious catches his eye. Clonsky buzzes in his ear. “Stiles, Derek says there’s a pulse emitter in the lower right leg of the tray, set it off.”

“You got it boss, any word on what the plan is?”

“Standby.”

Stiles breathes out and taps the top of the emitter while ringing the bell. He scans the crowd for reactions. Two audience members grab their ears and make eye contact with him. “There’s two at my one o’clock and…” he looks at the girls standing around the stage and sees Rhode Island staring at him in horror, hands over her ears. “Jackpot, check out Rhode Island.” Rhode Island books it out of there as Stiles turns off the emitter.

“10-4, standby for further instruction.”

He has a bad feeling about this, one that only gets confirmed when he hears something in his other ear—an all too familiar scream.

“Fuck, Clonsky, what’s happening?!”

“I don’t know, we need you to cause a distraction.”

Not having any better ideas, he finds a random Texan in the audience with a gun, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED IN THE STADIUM ANYWAY, FUCKING TEXAS, shouts flailing his arms, and leaps off the stage onto him.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles, Lydia, and Derek are all seated in Kathy’s office, and it feels uncomfortably like all the times they would get called into his dad’s office after doing something mildly illegal. They’re watching the footage of his interview earlier, because life is a cruel mistress. “A very bizarre incident today at the Miss United States pageant preliminaries. The contestant from New Jersey leapt offstage and tackled a man in the crowd who was just trying to light a cigarette. Gracie Lou Freebush is her name, she’s here with me right now. Tell me exactly what were you thinking when you jumped off the stage?”

Stiles watches his response through his fingers, wincing at both the sound of his voice and the awkwardness of his answer. “Well, I uhh… as you know Texas is a lot more… lax with their gun laws than New Jersey, and gun control is sort of a passion project of mine, so it sort of threw me a bit to see so many guns in one place. But I bet he’ll think twice before open carrying again!”

Kathy shuts off the TV without a word. “Look, he had a gun,” Stiles repeats, exasperatedly.

“Of course he had a gun, this is Texas, everybody has a gun! My florist has a gun!”

“I don’t have a gun,” Stan contributes. “My ancestors were Quakers!”

“Okay but why do so _many_ people have a gun at an event that is a target for a serial killer? Who’s in charge of security here because I think my team and I might have a few suggestions, y’know some constructive criticism, professional to professional?”

“Stiles,” Derek tries.

“Hey, I’m just saying, we have to assume that anyone with a weapon is a suspect until we know more.”

“And how is that investigation going, _Miss Freebush_? Because from here it looks as if you people are completely clueless. If I ran my pageant like this, we’d be holding it in someone’s basement!”

“C’mon, every operation is bound to have its screw-ups.”

“As far as I can see, he’s still with us.” Before he can get out of his chair, Derek puts his immovable hand on his shoulder. “Could I have a moment alone with our vigilante from New Jersey, please?”

Lydia and Derek share a look before the room is evacuated of everyone except Stiles and the woman slowly climbing his list of suspects, if only out of spite. “Look, I know I made a mistake, I’m sorry.”

“You know, I’ve been fighting all my life against your type, the ones who think we’re just a bunch of worthless airheads.”

“I never said—”

“I refuse to give in to their cynicism. That’s why I have dedicated my entire life to this scholarship. No one’s going to ruin it. Not this year.” She leans in closer to the ear without agents in it. “If you get in my way, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

“F’yeah, mhmm!”

“Yes.”

“ _Yes_ , Ms. Morningside, I understand.”

Yeah, definitely top of the list.

He tosses his earpiece onto the table as he enters the command center and shoves a donut in his mouth before Lydia can stop him. “Okay, so what actually happened?”

Derek and Lydia sharing a look is quickly becoming one of Stiles’s pet peeves. It’s Derek who eventually answers. “There’s been another attack.” He pulls up pictures from a burnt-out high-rise in what looks like Chicago. “We’re told it’s the Citizen.”

Stiles stares at the monitor in disbelief. “Was there even a letter?”

“Apparently so.” He picks up on the things Derek isn’t saying.

“Does anyone else get the feeling that this case is way more complicated than we were led to believe?”

“I had the same feeling,” Raf chimes in from where he’s been seated in the corner this whole time evidently.

“Holy sh—hey boss, when’d you get here?”

“An hour before your little PSA.” Stiles is too tired to be embarrassed at this point. He’s never going to live this down. “I was briefing the team before I pulled Derek and Lydia aside for an update on our resident beauty queen; that’s why you couldn’t find them, sorry about that.” Stiles pauses at that. Everyone on the team already knows about the supernatural, so why would he talk to them separately?

“Well,” Stiles replies, “I’m confident he can report in himself. We have a couple new leads. The emitter test worked: we now know that Miss Rhode Island is something, and there were two people in the audience who heard the emitter, however they didn’t seem to be a threat.”

“We’ll look into it,” Raf assures him.

“I was also just threatened by Kathy Morningside with the exact words, ‘if you get in my way, I will kill you,’ so we can add that to her growing pile of suspicious activity.”

“Noted, although to be fair I’m pretty sure everyone in this room has said they’ll kill you at some point, so let’s take that with a grain of salt.”

Lydia walks over to him and grabs his hand. “Okay, Miss Freebush, let’s let the boys handle the behind-the-scenes stuff, you and I have an interview to prepare for. And as this afternoon demonstrated, you’ll need all the preparation you can get.”

She waits until they’ve reached the soundstage before she lets him get more than a word out without shushing him. “Okay, Lydia, I’m fairly confident we’re well out of range of werewolf hearing, what’s going on?”

“Stiles, I need you to trust me.”

“Of course I trust you.”

“Look, something’s come up. Derek, Agent McCall, and I are handling it, but the less you know the better.”

“‘The less I know the better’? When in our entire lives has that ever been true? So many of our problems could’ve been solved if we knew about them ahead of time!”

“This isn’t one of them. If we tell you what we suspect, we’ll lose the chance to act on it.”

“So I’m the bait, excellent, my favorite.”

“You’re not the bait, you’re the sleeper. We’ll bring you in when the time is right.”

“Okay, since when are you more in the loop than me on an FBI investigation?”

“I’m not.”

He looks at her, sees the frustration and sadness in her eyes. The fear. “This isn’t about the case, is it? It’s about the pack.” She doesn’t look at him. “Lydia, what happened in Beacon Hills?” His breathing is becoming shaky.

“I’ll tell you when there’s something to tell.”

He rubs a hand along his face, not caring that his makeup is ruined because he’s done for the day anyway. He’s no longer sure he wants the answer to this question, but he has to know. “I heard you scream.”

“W-what?”

“When I was onstage. I heard you scream.”

She looks at him quizzically. “I didn’t… you heard a banshee scream?”

“Yes, it has a very distinct spine-tingling unpleasantness. That wasn’t you?”

“No. And I didn’t hear anything. Derek didn’t either or he’d have said something about it.”

“That’s mildly disturbing but a relief.”

She pulls him into a hug. “I told you, everyone’s gonna be fine.”

He freezes, and she stills with him. So much for nothing to tell. “That’s the second time you’ve worded it like that.” She doesn’t respond, and suddenly things start falling into place. He releases his hold on her and takes several steps back. “‘Everyone’s gonna be fine’, but they need the banshee to keep an eye on things just in case they aren’t, right? Because it was touch and go there for a bit, wasn’t it? You weren’t so sure someone was gonna make it.”

“Stiles, wait—”

He has three guesses who it is, but he’s still holding out the tiniest sliver of hope that he’s wrong. His voice is dispassionate and calm but he can feel the tears coursing down his cheeks. “Who was it, Lydia?”

She closes her eyes as her own tears fall. “I can’t tell you the details,” he lets out a guffaw, “BUT, he was… injured and now he’s fine.”

“My father.”

He hears the words but they feel like they’re swimming around outside of him and not landing. “He made me promise.” She steps towards him, desperate. “He made all of us swear not to tell you. Stiles, please, we _will_ tell you the whole story when this is all over, but you have to trust us.”

After everything they’ve been through together, after everything he’s told her about his fears and insecurities, of which this is the deepest. His voice sticks. “Fuck you, Lydia.”

~~~

On his way back to the room he sees Derek swimming laps. Either he can’t sense him underwater or he’s focused on his workout because he doesn’t react to Stiles’s presence until he hurls a toy football at him, hitting his triskele tattoo dead center. Derek surfaces and looks at him in confusion.

“So, werewolves can swim after all, good to know.”

“Surprise. Everything okay?”

“Just wanted to let you know that I quit.”

“What do you mean, you quit.”

“I mean I quit, it’s done, over, finito. Give me my phone.”

“You’re not quitting, we need you.”

“Do you? Because I don’t think you do, I think literally anyone else would be better in this role than me. I don’t even feel like a real agent anymore, I feel like a science experiment or the butt of an elaborate joke. Especially since I’m apparently last to know everything around here.”

Derek gets out of the water and sits on the edge of the pool in front of where Stiles has settled into a deck chair. “Stiles, talk to me. What happened?”

He’s pretty sure where this is gonna go, but maybe Derek will surprise him. “Lydia and I got in a big fight.”

“About what?”

“About the fact that you two keep hiding shit from me! I mean I expect it from you, you’re practically allergic to sentences, but making my girlfriend keep stuff from me is too far.”

“You know as well as I do that no one _makes_ Lydia do anything.”

“Yeah except Peter’s zombiewolf routine and the time I got Allison killed, but who’s counting.”

“Stiles.”

He exhales, hands rubbing his eyes. “I thought we were way past this secrecy BS, I mean Scott had a whole big speech about it, remember? It makes me feel like a loser sophomore again being told to keep out of stuff that directly affects the people I love.”

“But you never listened, and now you’re one of the most trusted people in the pack. That hasn’t changed.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Derek grimaces at him in an attempt at apology. “Not yet. If we don’t time this correctly, it could jeopardize the mission.”

Wait, the mission? “But Lydia said it was about Beacon Hills.”

“Her part is. My part is about the job. Like you said, this case is way more complicated than it first appeared.”

Here goes. “So tell me the parts that don’t relate to the case.”

“There’s nothing else to tell.”

Well, he gave him a chance. Stiles clicks his jaw and leans forward. “I see. So my dad almost dying is what, a non-story, just a fun fact?”

A flash of surprise crosses the werewolf’s face before being schooled into Derek’s typical hard-set poker face, one that admittedly is rarely turned on the pack anymore. “She told you.”

“Not really, it’s what she didn’t say. Tell me, Derek, were you planning on filling me in before or after he was dead?”

“We will tell you everything as soon as we can, but we need you to trust us. He’s fine now—”Stiles throws up his hands—“but he won’t _stay_ fine if you keep prying!”

That gives him pause. “What does that mean?”

Derek looks to the sky for strength and lets out a long exhale. “Look, you have every right to be angry right now, but I’d rather see you angry than dead. You have no idea how thin the thread holding this whole thing together is. My job is to see this mission through and to protect you, so let me.”

Stiles stands. “Right, and my job is just to stand there and look pretty, got it boss.”

Derek stands as well, not giving any ground. “Damn right it is. Because that’s what we’ve spent the past week training you to do and right now it’s the only thing you _can_ do. Everything else is out of your hands, and you need to just accept that.”

Stiles’s head vibrates with the seething rage eating his skull. “You know what, fine, you and Lydia run your little mission without me. But you know I think this is a fucking terrible idea and the only reason I’m going along with it is because even after all of this I _do_ trust you two. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need my beauty sleep, if you think I can handle that.” He makes to enter his room.

“Hey.” Derek grabs his wrist loosely. Stiles sways back. Derek’s eyes meet his and he’s reminded that the wolf has been pulling the same hours he has, dark circles forming even with werewolf healing. His touch lingers longer than is strictly necessary, until Stiles realizes he’s taking his pain. The fight leaves with it. “We wouldn’t keep this from you if we didn’t have an excellent reason. We get how much this sucks. But it was your dad’s call, and Scott and I followed his lead. You can be mad at us all you like, that’s fair, but don’t take it out on Lydia. We put her in an impossible position, and if you think this hasn’t been eating her up inside then you’re an idiot.”

Stiles sighs, shaking himself free from Derek’s grasp. Voice-of-reason Derek is the most annoying Derek. “You’re right. I’ll talk to her in the morning.”

“Get some sleep, Stiles.” Derek grins and gestures at the pool behind him. “It’s your turn to get wet tomorrow!” He glares at the bastard for a second, then smirks as he pushes Derek backwards. The wolf snags his wrist again on the way down and they both go tumbling in the water.

~~~

Stiles doesn’t like being naked in front of people. Before this assignment, the only people who had seen him naked are Scott, Malia, Lydia, and his parents, and even that’s five people too many. He managed to avoid showering at school the entire four years, which is a feat he’s quite proud of. But suddenly everyone from Derek to Terry and Gloria to random beauticians have seen his junk, and it makes him self-conscious. He barely even takes his shirt off in public.

So, having to go on stage not just in a bathing suit but a women’s bikini is not exactly inspiring confidence.

“I still think she should wear a one-piece. It’ll hold the tuck better and we can put hose on her.”

“Yeah, let’s listen to Terry on this one,” Stiles begs, “put Gracie in a one piece, I beg you.”

“This isn’t a stage, sis, it’s TV, they’ll be able to see nylons. She’s gonna have to be taped.”

“Oh gods have mercy. Good thing we waxed.”

“…what do you mean taped?” The girls fix him with a twin look of sympathy before Terry pulls a roll of cloth tape from her kit. Oh. Ohhhhh no. “No. Absofuckinglutely not. That is going nowhere near me.”

“Do you wanna pop out on stage? Because it’s either this or a peep show.”

“Jesus Christ, fine. Gimme that.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“I think I get the idea, yeah.” Luckily, his drag mothers are much wiser than him because they sit him down and explain, in horrifyingly excruciating detail, what he has to do to get it right with minimal damage.

“Or we could just show you.”

“Hard pass.”

So here he is, disco stick taped between his legs, silicone in his bikini top, hairspray on his asscheeks holding his suit down, hemorrhoid cream on his eyebags, shivering in a towel until the absolute last second. He really hopes this is rock bottom.

“Gurl, you’re walking like Derek just gave it to you in the bathroom, remember to glide.” Derek coughs in the earpiece, Clonsky razzing him. “You are a gorgeous woman now, act like it.”

Clonsky gets too close to the mic, as usual. “And put your pin back on your sash.”

“Why, so you can creep on the girls in the dressing room?”

“Then get out of the dressing room.” Stiles growls and puts his pin on as he approaches the stage.

He gets in line and does his poses. He steps up to the main podium as Stan announces, “Newwww Jersey!” He steps off the podium, then all he has to do is not trip. He can do this.

He can, but evidently Arkansas behind him can’t because she trips in her heels. Why they’re wearing stilettos in swimsuits is way above Stiles’s paygrade, but it’s really biting him in the ass now. Literally, because he suddenly feels the breeze where he shouldn’t and realizes that when she tripped she took his bikini bottoms with her. The entire country is staring at his taped-down dick.

Welcome to rock bottom, Stiles.

The auditorium is silent. His instincts tell him to run before they tell him to pick up his bottoms, so he goes half a step before tripping as well, then speed-crawls the rest of the way off stage. Pandemonium erupts. The other contestants are scandalized, Terry and Gloria drag him offstage the rest of the way, Stan is trying to calm the crowd. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Oh my god, we’re finished. What do I do??”

“Gracie,” Janessa commands as she sprints over, having already shown. “Breathe.”

“I’m fucked, everyone saw, what do I do?!”

“And _that_ ,” he can hear Terry quip to Gloria, “is why she should’ve worn a one-piece.”

Janessa focuses his attention on her. “Breathe. Breathe with me, okay?” Lydia is upon them, followed shortly by Derek. “Breathe in.” He takes a shallow breath in. “And out.” It’s shaky and he can barely get it out before he’s taking in another. “Hold it.” He holds it for as long as he can, thankfully making it until Janessa continues, “and out. Again.”

Lydia takes charge like the badass she is. “Terry, Gloria, get him back to the hotel. I’ll talk to Stan, see what I can do; Derek, you go run interference with McCall. Janessa, with me.” Her tone and logical soundness brook no arguments.

“C’mon, henny, let’s get you back into your street clothes.” The queens came in their rental, so he doesn’t have to wait on the bus for the humiliation of riding back with the girls. They murmur encouragements as they drive him back, but he knows in his heart it’s over. There’s no coming back from this. Not only did he blow his cover, he jeopardized the whole mission. And if the look on Janessa’s face was any indication, she was prepared for battle. He could have just cost her the competition as well depending on how badly they want to make an example of him. Fuck.


	5. Chapter 5

Untucked and unresponsive, when the girls leave he tries to cry himself to sleep but only manages half of those goals. About an hour and a half later, the telltale sound of a keycard in a reader opens the door for Janessa and Lydia. “Get up,” his girlfriend commands. “You have an interview in half an hour.”

“Pass.”

Janessa rolls him around to face them. “Wrong answer. You wanna fix this? You’re gonna do what we say and fast. Wash your face, we’re gonna pick you out an outfit, then on the way there we’re gonna grill you until you’re able to nail this interview. Understood?”

Don’t mess with Texas, his ass—don’t mess with Pennsylvania!

He does as instructed while Lydia explains the plan. “We managed to convince Kathy and Stan to release a statement saying they were aware of your trans status when you entered the competition and that this incident is a violation of your privacy not cause for dismissal.”

“But I’m not trans.”

“Bitch, you are today, if you screw this up for us I swear to god.” Janessa fixes him with a steel gaze. “I just came out on the record. I put my neck out for you as a show of solidarity because whether you wanted to or not you opened the entire can of worms that is trans women in the pageant circuit.” She outed herself because of him. She must see the panic starting to grow because her face softens. “This isn’t your fault, and we’re going to emphasize that throughout this whole circus, but I really need you to put on your big girl panties and play the game. Call your sister if you have to, this will affect her the most after all, but you’re doing this, _Gracie_.”

“My sist—” Oh right, his imaginary twin sister, AKA his other cover story. Fuck this is getting hard to follow. Is this how spies feel all the time? “Oh my god I hadn’t even thought of that, she’ll be ruined.”

“Not if you play along,” Lydia reiterates, ushering him out the door. “I already called Gracie, she knows about the situation and is preparing her next steps.” The glint in her eye tells him they’re having two different conversations. She must mean Derek. Or Raf maybe. “She saw the whole thing and wants you to know she’s not mad and it’s not your fault. She’s got your back. Also she said you’ll go along with quote ‘her amazing and smarter-than-you girlfriend’s plan’ end quote if you know what’s good for you.”

Stiles groans loudly as he’s dragged off to his newest gong show, but he’s grateful to have these two in his corner. He squeezes Lydia’s hand when Janessa isn’t looking, and she smiles at him softly.

He really wishes this counted as the interview portion of the competition so he doesn’t have to do this all over again a few hours later, but the universe isn’t that kind. Yes, this was a wardrobe malfunction not a cry for attention. No, _she_ is not pretending to be a woman to spy on the contestants in the dressing room ~~at least not for the reasons they think~~. The girls use all sorts of presentation tricks: Vaseline on the teeth, hairspray on the swimsuit hemline, hair extensions—it just so happens that Gracie Lou needs different tricks to pull off the look. None of this would have happened if Arkansas didn’t have to walk in heels; we really should be critiquing the beauty standards that require women to contort their bodies to fit a cis, straight, white male ideal of what women should look like. New Jersey and Pennsylvania are not the first trans contestants, and they certainly won’t be the last, because trans women are women, full stop. Once again, she did not lie about being a ‘real’ woman, she simply didn’t disclose something that was no one’s business. No you may not ask for her birth name.

After that are the actual interviews. Derek and Clonsky start buzzing in his ear as Rhode Island takes the stage. “We didn’t find anything on Rhode Island. Do you think you can get her to talk?”

“Probably not; I doubt she trusts me after the emitter debacle.”

“Just talk to her, you’ll think of something. Regardless of whether she’s a threat, she’ll be expecting this conversation anyway.”

“Describe your perfect date,” Stan asks with flair.

“That’s a tough one,” Cheryl laughs nervously. “I’d have to say April 25th, because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket!”

“Now there is a hardened criminal,” Stiles deadpans.

His own interview passes by in a flash, accidentally going on a rant about incarceration rates and the war on drugs when the correct answer was ‘world peace’. But at long last the press circuit is over and he collapses into Lydia’s arms. They still haven’t had a chance to clear the air from last night, but he’s so grateful he can always count on her for this. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, I really wish I could tell you—”

“I know.” He breathes in her gardenia shampoo, centering himself. “I talked to Derek about it. They shouldn’t have made you lie to me.”

“I’m just trying to protect you.”

“I know. You always protect me. It’s one of the many things I love about you.” They hold each other for another long moment before Lydia dares to continue the conversation.

“It’s not just about the case, is it?”

He wants to believe he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, so he acts like ice hasn’t plunked into his stomach. “What is?”

“The tension between us.”

He untangles himself from her slightly but doesn’t look in her eyes. “Well, I mean, long distance is hard, right?”

“Right.” He risks a glance at her but she’s not looking at him either. She swings their hands a little where they’re clasped, the only point where they’re still touching. “It’s like, we’ve both got these entirely separate lives.” Oh. He thinks he knows where she’s going with this, and sure enough: “I mean I know it’s your job and that it requires a certain amount of secrecy.”

“Lydia—”

“But you keep things from me, important things, all the time and I just live with it because that’s what you need me to do.”

He lets go of her hands, one of his rubbing behind his neck. “And now the shoe’s on the other foot.”

She laughs wetly. And he thought not crying in his makeup would be the easy part of this assignment. “It’s not fun being the damsel, is it?”

“More like existentially terrifying. Also never thought I’d _complain_ about you and Derek finally bonding but the two of you together is doing all sorts of weird shit to my emotions.”

“So now _you’re_ jealous of him too?”

He stills. “What? I’m not jealous of Derek, why would I be?”

She bites her lip sadly, like this is the answer she was afraid of. “So you’re jealous of me.”

Uhhh. “What? I’m not jealous of anyone.”

“I am,” she admits, which is saying something because Lydia rarely has reason to experience this particularly unpleasant emotion. His cheeks heat up and his heart chills and his hearing is slightly fuzzy. “I’m not the one you confide in, Stiles. He is. Because he’s the only one of us you’re _allowed_ to confide in. And I’ve learned to be okay with that, but it’s hard.”

His mouth moves before his brain. “So this is, what, a taste of my own medicine?”

She raises her eyebrows in shocked anger. “No! If anything it’s—”

Rhode Island walks by and freezes when Stiles catches her eye. He can’t tell whether he’s aggravated or grateful that the case interrupted them. “Hey, Cheryl.” Lydia shoots him a look saying this conversation isn’t over but she cheats out to let Cheryl into the conversation and plasters on a tired smile. “Um, we didn’t get a chance to talk after, well…”

She looks around frantically for exits without causing a scene. “Oh, yeah I mean do we really have to talk about it? I was hoping the pageant could be like a truce? Y’know, in the spirit of world peace.”

Dear gods, please protect this sweet summer child. He puts his hands up. “I’m not a hunter. World peace all the way.” Her instincts seem to be well-attuned to the stranger danger but her optimism and (hopefully) the steadiness of his heartbeat seem to win out as she makes her way over. “Actually, Lydia was just telling me about how she loved your routine!”

Lydia spares him a quick glance but recovers quickly. “Yes of course.” They start talking and Stiles wanders over to the corner, ignoring Cheryl’s eyes following his every move.

“Derek, you listening?”

“Unfortunately.” Oh right, he probably… heard… all of that. Yikes.

“Ohhh god, kill me. Okay, what’s the play here, how much do I tell her?”

“Tell her enough to build trust with her but not enough to compromise the mission. We don’t know if she’s a suspect or if she’s in danger.”

“Okay but how much is enough, like—”

“Stiles. I trust you.” He lets the full meaning of that sit before continuing. “Whatever you do, we’ll follow your lead.”

He looks over at Lydia and Cheryl who are hitting it off well despite Cheryl not-so-subtly listening in. It gives him an idea.

“You promise?”

“Yes, Gracie, I promise.”

He starts to take off his sash. “Good, then I’m taking the night off to get my girl talk on, and no offense but the less boys in my head while I do that, the better. G’niiiight!” He removes his earpiece before Derek can respond and walks back over to hand them to Lydia. “Sorry about that! Lydia, could you return this to the dressing room when you get a chance? And then come out with us! I think what we all could use is a girls’ night.”

~~~

‘Girls’ night’ ends up being him, Rhode Island, New York, New York’s girlfriend, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and Hawaii. Gloria and Terry have a flight back home to catch but they send him off with kisses and lewd comments. Lydia said she didn’t feel up to it and gave him a chaste kiss before heading up to her room. He tries not to read too much into it and focus on working his Stilinski mojo. The promise of pizza and beer quickly leads to shots at a bar with blacklight paint and drum circles, which is not what he expected to find in Texas, but it works.

The girls are genuinely fun to hang out with, and part of him wishes he didn’t have to lie to them because he feels like they could be friends in another world. He tries to hide his discomfort when New York congratulates him and Janessa on being ‘out and proud trans women now’, shooting PA an apologetic smile.

This paint will probably be the bane of his existence in the morning (and in retrospect the wig should probably have been removed because he’s 90% sure they can’t just wash it), but it was surprisingly cathartic to bang his problems out on the drums. He and Rhode Island sit down at the table just as the rest of them get up to drum. “That was amazing!” Cheryl shouts over the din of the crowd.

“Yeah! Thanks for coming out with us tonight.”

“Thank you for inviting me! I’ll admit, I was scared when you set off that emitter that I was gonna have to drop out, but you’re actually really nice.”

“Aww, you’re a sweetheart. And sorry about that, I wasn’t trying to scare you. My best friend’s actually an alpha back home.”

“Really? What’s their name? OH! Is he that hot guy that was talking to you during the swimsuit competition?”

Shit, people weren’t supposed to see him with Derek any more than his roommate already had. “No, that’s my partner, Derek, he’s a beta.”

“Aww, cute! How long have you two been together?”

Right. Well at least it’s not a lie to say he’s his partner, although it’s probably a good thing Lydia isn’t here because if she was jealous before then this would be a nightmare. “I’ve known him since high school, but we’ve only been partners for about three years.”

“That’s sweet! Wait, I thought boys weren’t allowed around here.”

“Derek had to get special permission, it’s a long story.” Cheryl downs another test tube. Make that three. “I thought werewolves couldn’t get drunk.”

“It’s called a placebo!”

“Fair enough!” He looks to make sure the others are still down onstage before proceeding. “Hey Cheryl, is it common for wolves to compete in these things?”

“Oh no, my family thought I was crazy for wanting to do this, but it’s something I’ve always wanted even as a kid. But they don’t like all the attention. I actually wanted to do this flaming baton routine but my parents are deathly afraid of fire.”

“So is Derek. But that must be cool, you should try it sometime.”

“I don’t know, I’m not really all that brave.”

“Sure you are, it takes a fearless person to parade around onstage in a bikini.”

“Especially if it falls off!” They burst out laughing, because now that it’s past him it really is hilarious. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.”

“Nah, it’s fine, I’m gonna be hearing that story till I’m 90, I’m sure.” They eat their pizza contently for a bit. “Hey, so about the emitter.”

“Yeah, what was that about?”

“Listen, I think you might be in danger. Have you noticed anything odd the past couple days? Any people acting weird?”

“No, I don’t think so.” So much for that. “Oh wait! There was this one thing. When you turned it on I thought I heard someone screaming, but it wasn’t a human scream or a roar it was—”

“A banshee call, yeah I heard it too.”

“Are banshees dangerous?”

He snorts. “They can be when they need to, but for the most part no. They do predict death, though.”

“You think someone’s gonna die?”

“Not if I can help it.” The other girls choose this moment to return to the table. “Hey! We should get back before Miss Morningside finds out.”

“Agreed,” New York says. “Kathy's got a boot up her ass about something.”

“I don't think she ever got over those rumors.”

“Come again?”

“Her pageant years she was a runner-up. But then the winner mysteriously got food poisoning.” Is that so?

“Bizarro!”

“No, Stan told me she got a letter a few weeks back from the network...and they' re firing her too! She threw a chair out the window!” Jackpot. Kathy Morningside is once again at the top of Stiles’s list of suspects.

“We gotta go. Come on.”

~~~

When he walks into the command center, everything is abuzz. Lydia is in her nightgown talking animatedly with Derek in the corner. The equipment is half disassembled. Raf is on the phone looking like he’s about to lose it. “Don’t tell me I don’t understand, you don’t understand, I need a little more than—” Whoever’s on the line with him cuts him off.

It’s Clonsky who tells him. “They bagged the Citizen.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“It's confirmed. He was holing up in a shack in Nevada. Place had enough C4 to make a new Grand Canyon.”

“Alright,” Raf calls to the room, “it’s official, we’re out of here, let’s get this packed up.”

He makes a B-line for his boss. “Sir, I need to talk to you.”

“Not now, Stiles.”

“Hear me out a second. I feel the situation bears further scrutiny and our continued presence.”

McCall takes in his technicolor state and shakes his head. “Do you have paint in your ears? They caught the guy!”

“I respect what you' re saying. I'd say the same to me…but what if they’re wrong?” McCall rolls his eyes and starts typing on his phone. “I thought we said it was a copycat. The letters didn't follow the normal pattern. The linguistic scheme was uncharacteristic, the Citizen had no previous association with the supernatural, and the DNA said it was a non-human woman!”

“Stiles.”

“I think we have reason to monitor Morningside.”

“Stiles! I don’t want to hear anymore!”

Begrudgingly he takes the hint. “You’re absolutely right, sir, not another damn word.” He makes a zipping motion with his hand and stands over by Lydia and Derek.

“Thank you.”

That lasts all of two seconds. “But she’s getting fired this year which she neglected to tell us, and when she was in the pageant the only reason she won is because the winner mysteriously got ‘food poisoning’.”

McCall massages the bridge of his nose. “Stiles, I swear to God.”

“She threatened me, remember that? And according to Mary Jo she has a history of violent behavior.”

“Who’s Mary Jo?” Clonsky snarks. “Are you getting your information from a pajama party?”

Derek whispers in Stiles’s ear. “Would you shut up?”

“Why, you’re shutting up enough for the both of us, as usual.”

“Just let it go.”

McCall directs his attention to the traitor. “Hale: is there any reason to suspect Morningside?”

He shoots a pitying glance to Stiles before returning his gaze to his boss. “No, sir.”

McCall makes a gesture that signals the end of the conversation.

“Fine, then I request permission to stay behind with a small contingent.”

“Permission denied.”

“Then I request permission to stay alone.”

“You know what, I don’t care what you do.” He begins packing up, which serves as a cue to the other agents—who had stopped to watch the drama unfold—to do the same. “If you wanna be Miss United States, be my guest, but you do so as a private citizen. Turn in your badge and your gun.”

“As you wish.” He slams them on the counter and looks at his girlfriend. “Well, Lydia, looks like it’s just you and me.” She looks anywhere but at him. “Ah. I see. Of course, that’s… that’s great, Lydia, you know what, you do what you need to do.” He turns around and walks out the door. “I’m gonna do what _I_ have to do.”


	6. Chapter 6

When he gets to the room, Janessa is out cold. He looks in the mirror and sees bright pink lipstick scrawled across it. ‘See you back home in your tiara, Miss NJ! Break a leg, bitch <3 Terry Yaki and Gloria Gayyynor’. He takes a long shower, partially to get the majority of the paint off, partially because he does some of his best crying in the shower. He throws on some underwear, borrows his roommate’s nail polish remover and a hotel washrag, and starts removing the rest of the paint. A soft knock startles him out of his wallowing. He wipes his eyes on his forearm and cracks open the door to see Lydia. He breathes in and with a loud exhale opens the door for her.

“She’s sleeping,” he points out as he leads her onto the patio. They sit in silence for a minute.

“I’m sorry.”

“We’re not gonna fix this, are we?”

She’s quiet for a moment then looks into his eyes, tears threatening her own. “I’m not sure I want to fix it.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

She takes his hand, slowly wiping off the paint with the washcloth he had forgotten he was holding. “Stiles, you’re my best friend. You and I—I mean you drove into Jackson so I could save him from being a kanima. I held you under when you sacrificed yourself to a tree. I wandered around your brain with Scott to free you from the nogitsune. You rescued me from Eichen House and from the coyote trap, I remembered you when you were erased—we will _always_ be connected. I love you.”

Stiles sighs, finally acknowledging that his worst fears were true. “But you’re not in love with me.”

She shakes her head, the tears loosened and coming down her cheeks. “I thought I was, for a while, but I think with all the stuff that happened to us, you were… I don’t know, a safe bet: you’ve been in love with me forever. And that worked for a while but you can’t throw two traumatized people into a relationship and expect it to work just because one of you has feelings and the other finds you bearable.”

“Bearable.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She sighs, frustrated, taking it out on a particularly stubborn stain. He stills her hand.

“I know, you mean you didn’t choose me, you had a lack of options, and you settled for what you could trust.”

She swallows deeply. “I’m sorry.”

His own tears start to fall, snuffled away into his shoulder. “No, I’m sorry I pressured you for so long to give me a chance. Y’know, deep down, I knew you’d never feel the same way, but it was what I’d always wanted and I wasn’t gonna give that up for anything. Even when I should have.”

Lydia pulls him deep into a hug, the two crying softly into each other’s shoulders. After some time, Lydia pulls back and places a chaste kiss on his lips. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye Lydia. We’ll catch up when we’ve had some time to sit with this a bit. Or whenever you decide to tell me what the Hell’s happening. Whichever comes first.”

She looks put out, then like she’s about to spill everything, but she eventually settles on: “you’ll figure it out, Stiles. You always figure it out.”

~~~

PA is once again gone when he wakes up, which isn’t surprising because he’s about an hour late. Fuck. He tosses his entire makeup collection into a bag and grabs the dress Lydia left for him before speeding down to the dressing room. The other girls harangue him good-naturedly when he shows up but they must see his blotchy eyes and distinct lack of any prep-work done because they stop laughing. “Sorry I’m late, I overslept my beauty sleep.”

Rhode Island approaches him cautiously. “Do you need help?”

“No I’m fine,” he sniffles. “I just gotta remember which one of these is the lipstick…”

“Oh no,” Rhode Island lets out. “Ladies!” Suddenly, the other contestants descend on him and help him get ready for their big dance number, shit, he totally forgot that was tonight. In that moment, he realizes that these girls are a family, a bitchy and competitive family, but absolutely willing to throw down for one of their own. He blames his eyes tearing up on the mascara.

He’s decided that walking downstairs in heels should be an Olympic sport. He has zero idea how he made it down the spiral staircase without sending the entire group to the floor, but he doesn’t have time to think about that. He follows the route they rehearsed without a hitch, but as he reaches the front of the stage—

“WHOOO GO NEW JERSEY!” Wait, he knows that voice! He looks out into the audience, almost forgetting to keep moving but catching himself, and sure enough, there’s Scott, and Malia, and Kira, and Liam and Mason and oh wow the entire… pack… is here…

He mutters frantically behind his smile. “Guys… what’re you doing here?! You’re gonna blow my cover!” He’s not sure they can hear him over the music, but before he can find out, it’s time for him to drop off his state cutout and torch and walk back into position for the dance. What are they doing here? How did they even know he was here, did Lydia tell them? The next couple minutes are rush of chaos, but he somehow remembers all the choreography and actually executes it. He doesn’t process his name being announced until Texas nudges him. He makes it two steps and trips. Typical.

As soon as he walks offstage having somehow just made the top 10 without FBI help, he speedwalks to the auditorium, hoping one of the wolves is listening. “Pack meeting, house left doors, NOW. Do you hear me? All of you out here right now.” By the time he can get there in these damn heels, the pack is filtering out the door.

Scott is absolutely beaming when he sees him, and as much as his presence here sets off all his alarm bells, he’s ecstatic to see a familiar face. Even if he is making fun of him. “Wow, Gracie Lou! Who know you had it in you!”

“Shut up and hug me, you dork.”

He doesn’t notice Scott doing the pain drain until it’s too late, and it makes him realize just how much he was carrying. Scott knows he hates when he does that, giving Stiles too many dark memories, but, well, his feet really are killing him. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks, Scotty, look, not that I’m not thrilled to see all of you, but why the fuck are you here? How’d you even know about this?”

“Well first of all,” Liam says. “We saw your coming out interviews, so that was new.”

“Ohhhhh, fuck. I promise there’s a story behind that.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain.”

“Oh my God, Scott, I’m not trans. I’m undercover.”

“I know,” he frowns. “I’m just saying, either way, you don’t owe us an explanation. Although we would appreciate one because Derek said to bring the whole pack here, but I get the feeling he didn’t tell you.”

Aaaand there’s the red flag. “Why would Derek say that? From what I understand he’s been trying to _keep_ me from talking to you because… hey, who’s watching my dad?”

Scott winces sheepishly. “How much did they tell you?”

“Enough to make me worry but not enough to let me do anything about it. Where is he?”

“I’m right here, son.”

Stiles turns around to see his father coming out of the bathroom. He shuffles over to him as fast as he can and wraps his arms around his neck. “Oh thank God, they wouldn’t tell me anything, what happened?”

“That can wait.”

“Uh, no, it can’t, something’s seriously wrong. There’s no reason for Derek to ask you to come here. Not only is the wolf we found not a suspect, but the team left when they caught the real Citizen. So someone better start talking because we need to get ready for anything fast.”

Dad lets out a world-weary sigh and backs away from Stiles. “Okay, let’s get the easy part done first. This is what they didn’t want to tell you.” He watches in horror as his dad’s eyes glow gold and his teeth elongate. He says nothing until his father’s features resume human shape. “Stiles, talk to me.”

“You took the bite. No, that’s, that’s cool, uhhh, you know what, I’ll process that later. Can someone please get Derek on the phone?”

Scott frowns. “Is Derek not here?”

“No, I told you, the team left, including him and Lydia. It’s just me.”

“They left you behind?” His dad asks. “That’s not like them.”

“I, umm… I may have kinda, sorta, turned in my badge. To stay here and figure out what’s going on.”

Dad stares at him in wry disbelief. “You quit your job at the FBI. To compete in a beauty pageant. Am I hearing that correctly?”

“I’m sure your hearing is just fine now, dad. And it’s more of a scholarship competition?”

“That’s probably why he called us,” Malia offers. “You don’t have back-up anymore so you need your pack.”

“Derek’s phone’s off,” Liam reports. “And Lydia’s not picking up.”

“Shit, okay, I’ve got to get back in there, but tl;dr, Beacon Hills and the pageant didn’t fit the pattern so I think they’re a copycat. Whatever they tried to pull back home they’ll probably try again here, so if you see or hear anything, find a way to let me know. Also, I heard a banshee call that wasn’t Lydia, and the other wolf heard it too, no idea what it means, so I’d love to hear your theories on that one.” The music inside changes. “Fuck, alright, I love all of you, don’t die, no pictures or I’ll end your biological existence!”

Scott calls after him as he tries to run in heels. “Knock ‘em dead, Jersey!”

~~~

Having learned his lesson about bikinis, he manages to tuck himself into a one-piece and make it onstage just in time for him to be called. The audience giggles a bit at his costume change, but they’re more anxiously waiting to see if he’ll flash them again. Mercifully, that was a one-time snafu.

He shimmies out of the swimsuit into the Swiss maid uniform, taking his time to calm down in the dressing room. There’s nothing they can do right now except remain vigilant. His pep talk doesn’t compare, though, to the wave of serenity that sweeps over him when he sees Lydia and Derek in the wings. “You came back.” He pulls them both into a tight hug that they return.

“You were right, sleeper,” Lydia confirms. He remembers back to their initial fight. This was all part of the plan. “We couldn’t tell you, but you were right about Morningside.”

“Clonsky was compromised so we had to get him out of the picture before we could continue working the case. He’s the one who took my phone so she could call the pack.”

“Clonsky? Yeah that tracks. How’d you know it was…” He looks around, remembering he’s on Morningside’s turf, “…her?”

“The non-human DNA? Siren.”

“And then I thought about the banshee call,” Lydia continues. “Then when Derek’s phone got stolen, he realized someone had called the pack. She was spoofing other sounds to corral us.”

“Wait, so _did_ you tell Clonsky to tell me to cause a distraction? Because that’s why I dove off the stage after I heard the banshee call.”

Derek shakes his head no. “That’s how we knew for sure it was him, we didn’t have time to tell him about the emitter test, so whoever he was working with overheard us and made him get you to cause a scene.”

Lydia smirks. “Of course, he probably didn’t think you’d do something quite so… grand, though I imagine it worked in his favor.” The ASM approaches and tells him New Jersey’s on deck.

“Well lucky for us, the jumping’s been cut from the routine, so hopefully I can finish my solo in peace.”

That hope lasts all of fifteen seconds as he makes his way over to the table of glasses.

“Hey! You’re drinking my talent!” He surveys the damage, testing to see if the glasses are still viable but they’re all out of tune. Shit shit shit! He did not come this far just to lose because of some fucking glassware. “Oh my god, what am I gonna do? I don’t have a backup, all I have is sarcasm and a gun.”

“Yeah, and a killer right hook,” Derek muses. You would think over the years that Stiles would learn not to punch a werewolf, but necessity occasions it more often than his bones would like. Just then, Stiles gets possibly the best idea he’s had this entire trip. He fixes Derek with the same evil grin that made Jared cower and vomit all those years ago, a grin that Derek knows by now will not end well for him.

“And now,” Kathy says, “the musical stylings of Gracie Lou Freebush!”

He smiles as he waits for the applause to die down. “Good evening, I know the uh, program says I’m supposed to play the water glasses for you but uh, some of the girls got dehydrated.” He pauses for laughter. “Now, I believe that no woman should be without at least a basic knowledge of self-defense, so uhh… in order to show you this, I’mma need a little help, and I would like to bring out my assistant, Derek… Bobb.”

Derek walks out uncomfortably to the warm applause of the audience, waving his hand once with a tight grimace. He’s gonna kill Stiles when they get home but it was worth it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity: he gets to beat the shit out of Derek, who can’t use his wolf powers because they’re on live TV? Some things are priceless.

“I’m gonna show you how to attack Derek’s sensitive areas to inflict maximum damage with the least amount of force. Okay, now in some cases, your attacker might come at you in a, uh, frontal assault…” He gestures to Derek, who takes one step forward before Stiles immediately punches him in his pretty face. The look of shock seems to be genuine, and the crowd certainly bought it if their ‘ooh!’s are any indication. “Use the heel of your hand and thrust it upwards, this will cause the nose to break, and your assailant’s eyes to tear, giving you a chance to get away.

“Okay, let’s say your assailant comes at you from behind.” Stiles assumes the position and waits, but he doesn’t feel the press of a werewolf behind him. The audience laughs, causing him to look back. Derek looks at him with his eyebrows furrowed and his hands on his hips, clearly not going anywhere. “Attack me!” He clicks his jaw shut even tighter if that’s even possible. That’s okay, Stiles can play this game. “Uh-oh… widdle Dewek wooks a widdle scawed!” The audience eats it up.

“I fucking hate you,” Derek mutters.

“You love me,” Stiles whispers. “Serves you right.” He turns back to face the audience. “Maybe he needs a widdle bit of appwause…” The audience obliges whole-heartedly and he claps loudly along with them until Derek loosens up behind him. They reset and Stiles waits for Derek to attack him. After that, it’s just a combination of pack training and FBI training that lets him use the momentum created by Derek picking him up to slam his body down and roll the wolf over his shoulder. Derek lands in front of him with a thud and the crowd loses it.

Derek gets back up again, slowly, while Stiles explains the big finale. “Now, if all else fails, go for the four sensitive areas of the body. Just remember to SING: S-I-N-G.” Derek attacks him again from behind, his grip stronger and with a little more werewolf breath on his neck, but that’s neither here nor there, this is work. ~~He can imagine Derek panting behind him later.~~ He makes quick work of him: “Solar plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin!” Derek collapses, mostly for dramatic effect but he did clip his balls pretty good, and the audience goes wild. He waves out a thank you, helps Derek up, and walks him off stage.

“Thaaank you, Derek,” Stiles sings cheekily.

“If it wouldn’t ruin your makeup I’d bang your head against this pole like old times.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you have any idea how excited I was that the names Derek and Eric sound so similar this scene is iconic


	7. Chapter 7

They have some time until the eveningwear interview portion so they reconvene in a corner backstage. “Okay, here’s what I don’t get. Well, like, three things. Kathy’s motives for bombing the place I get, it’s simple enough—”

Lydia side-eyes him. “That’s the part that makes sense?”

“But why not just do it, why alert the FBI to her intentions? And what does she have against the pack?”

“Well a lot of mass murderers do it for the attention,” Derek says significantly, though gracefully not pointing out the personal experience Stiles has with that feeling. “As for the pack, maybe when the Beacon Hills bomb didn’t go off, she decided to settle the score here.”

“But Parrish said it was a dud,” Lydia counters. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the Beacon Hills bomb as a dress rehearsal for the real thing?”

“Why does a siren need a wolfsbane bomb though? It doesn’t make sense.”

Stiles makes to run his fingers through his hair in frustration, but Lydia automatically grabs his wrist before he can mess up his wig. “Okay, can you please tell me exactly what happened so I can help put the pieces together? How does a dud bomb lead to my dad getting bitten?”

Derek explains that while the bomb didn’t explode, it released a smokescreen of wolfsbane that made the wolves shift while hunters attacked, and in the confusion, Scott bit his dad.

“Wait wait wait, why were hunters there?”

“That’s why we thought Monroe was working with the Citizen. But now that we know it’s a copycat either Monroe’s teamed up with supernaturals—”

“Or she was a red herring,” Lydia answers for him. Stiles’s gears start turning. What, so Morningside hires a bunch of hunters—or actors pretending to be hunters—just for a frame job? That doesn’t make any sense either. But Clonsky would never knowingly work with Monroe after what she did to his coven. Which means Morningside’s the one he’s been taking orders from, for whatever reason. But the kind of sophisticated tech needed for a bomb like that requires a hunter’s input so what do the two—

“Or both.” Not a bomb. A diffuser. Stiles watches the camera crews switching off equipment and has an epiphany. “She doesn’t want to kill anyone. She wants an audience.”

Lydia and Derek look at him with twin looks of confusion as he starts pacing. “Clonsky suggested Monroe as a red herring to hide his and Morningside’s involvement, but Morningside and Monroe—or one of her associates—actually were secretly working together. Because they share a common goal: they want the whole world to watch this.”

Lydia follows his train of thought first. “Morningside wants to send a message to the network and pull in ratings to keep her job and doesn’t care who gets hurt to do it.”

Derek finishes. “And what better way to go down in history than if your show was the one to definitively reveal the supernatural to the world.”

Stiles turns to Lydia. “We have to get the pack out of here.” She is about to say something, but instead she squeezes his hand and kisses his forehead, then runs off to evacuate the auditorium. “I gotta get in my evening gown, you go figure out where she’s hiding the bomb.”

“Stiles wait.”

“What is it?”

Derek looks at him in detached calm, which is never a good sign. “When we left this morning, Lydia screamed.”

“Oh.” He tries not to let the panic fill him. “Any name in particular, or just a general dread at the entire situation?” He says nothing. Which in Derek means… “she screamed my name.”

Derek nods. “She kept crying about how the last time you two talked it was a fight, and how she might not see you again.”

Stiles exhales deeply. “Is now really the best time to tell me this?”

“You need to talk to her,” he admonishes. “You may be broken up, but she still cares about you.”

Stiles nods awkwardly. “Will do.”

Derek nods back then begins moving, slapping a hand onto Stiles’s shoulder. “Oh, and don’t die.”

“I’ll try my best!”

Once he’s managed to become somewhat passable in the gown, he hurries over to the stage for the second round of eliminations. If the universe was ever on his side, then hopefully he won’t make the Top 5. He gets in line and the finalists take the stage: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas.

He looks out into the audience and the pack is still there, although much more grim. He stares at them wide-eyed until he sees Lydia at the auditorium door. She points to the doorframe and mouths something. When he doesn’t get it, she makes a sweeping motion with her hand, gesturing to the whole auditorium. It clicks: mountain ash. He (hopefully subtly) makes the sign for ‘door’ but then he sees the bodyguard standing near her, watching their interaction. So the pack is stuck in here. Great.

Stan and Kathy take the stage. “Ladies! In one moment, five of you will be one step closer to the crown. And one of those five...is...California! Leslie Williams…” Stiles tunes out as Stan and Kathy continue announcing the Top 5, only barely registering Rhode Island and Nebraska stepping forward while he tries to identify the most likely egress strategies and places a bomb could be hiding.

“New Jersey!”

Stiles looks up at Kathy in fear. There is literally no reason for him to still be in the running. The menacing look in her eyes says that he’s right where she wants him. Fuck.

“Gracie Lou Freebush hopes to become a pediatrician.”

New York nudges her. “Gracie, it's you. Go!”

Stiles plasters on a bewildered smile and carefully walks up to take his place in the finals. “Her hobbies include figure skating, water ballet, and taking long, luxurious bubble baths.”

The pack, trying to keep some semblance of pretense that everything’s fine, stand and shout. “You go, Gracie Lou!” “That’s my little girl!” They’re lucky he loves them. He blows them a dramatic kiss.

“And our fifth finalist: Texas!” The San Antonio crowd makes considerably more noise as it cheers their state’s victor. “Mary Jo Wright is a psychology major…” He knows it’s not merit that got him into the Top 5, but he can’t figure out the pattern. Why would Kathy _want_ him to keep competing? Unless it means he’ll be too busy onstage to figure out her plan. There’s still pieces out of place that she doesn’t want him interfering with. “Thank you, ladies. You were magnificent.”

The exit music starts as New York and Pennsylvania share a nod. They run to the edge of the stage. “I just wanna let all the lesbians out there know,” shouts New York, “that if I can make it to the Top 10, so can you!”

“And to all the trans girls out there,” adds Pennsylvania, “we belong up on this stage. Trans women for lesbian rights!”

“Lesbians for trans rights!”

They clasp hands and raise their fists. “Queer women of color unite!”

Extremely proud of his roommate, he laughs incredulously at not being the focus of attention for once. He gives them a shout of support and applause as the two of them are dragged away, pumping their fists in the air. 

Stan recovers and resumes his duties. “We’ll be right back with our final five lesbians. Interviews!”

~~~

As soon as he’s off stage, he borrows Nebraska’s contraband phone and calls the number he memorized all the way back in 6th grade. Lydia answers cautiously. “Hello?”

“Lydia, it’s me.”

“Stiles? The doors are—”

“Mountain ash, I know. Look, you need to stay there and evacuate the wolves as soon as shit goes down, they cannot breathe that stuff in. If it goes off they won’t be able to stop you from leaving so have everyone on standby.”

“Okay.”

Stiles lets out a tired breath. “Also, I maybe heard you screamed my name.”

Silence greets him on the other end, then “Derek told you.”

“I’m not dying today Lydia, I refuse to die in nylons!”

“Good, because I expect my best friend to be in one piece when this is over.”

“Well, that’s fantastic because your best friend loves you and, while incredibly frustrated with you, is really hoping we can patch things up.”

“As friends.”

“As friends.”

“Can’t wait.”

The girls move towards the stage. “I gotta go.”

“Kick ass, Gracie. I love you too. Oh, and in case Derek ever gets his act together, you’re welcome.”

“What—” Lydia hangs up. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts and hurries towards the stage. He sees the wolf himself walking by and stops him. “Any luck?”

“I called Parrish and he said the actual wiring could look like anything because the bomb part was fake. The important part, the diffuser, is tiny. It could be anywhere.”

“Fuck, okay, well, see you on the other side, I guess.”

“Break a leg, Gracie.”

He zooms into position with a dirty look from the cameraperson just as they’re counting down. The interview is a complete blur, but he somehow manages to hear his question. “New Jersey: As you may know, there are many who consider the Miss United States pageant to be outdated and antifeminist. What would you say to them?”

Hokay, time to mansplain feminism, great great great cool cool cool. “Oh my God, umm… I would have to say, I used to be one of them. And then I came here...and I realized that these women are smart, terrific people who are just trying to make a difference in the world. I mean look at New York and Pennsylvania, that’s some feminist pageantry!” The crowd claps politely. “And the other women and I, we've become really good friends. I know we all secretly hope the other one will trip and fall on her face—wait a minute! I've already done that!” The crowd’s laughter is oddly comforting. “For me, this experience has been one of the most challenging, illuminating, and liberating experiences of my life.”

The crowd applauds and the music starts, but he fixes Kathy with a look. “And if anyone—anyone!—tries to hurt one of my new friends I would take them out. I would make them suffer so much, they'd wish they were never born. And if they ran, I would hunt them down.” Stan laughs awkwardly as the crowd murmurs. Stiles pastes on his fakest smile. “Thank you, Kathy.”

Before he knows it, the five of them are standing there waiting to see who will be the next Miss United States, and what exactly Kathy has up her sleeve.

“And now,” Stan decrees, “the moment of truth and beauty. The envelope, please.” Stan takes an exaggerated breath. “A lot of tension. The fourth runner-up is…California!” Dramatic music punctuates the applause for California. Not New Jersey. …ummm. 

Kathy continues. “The third runner-up is…Nebraska!”

…UMMM.

It’s down to the final three: him (LITERALLY HOW), Texas, and Rhode Island. Obviously he’s not gonna be winning anytime soon, but both Texas and Rhode Island have done equally well. Rhode Island smiles at him, a flash of gold eyes sharing a secret solidarity. The truth hits him square in the chest just as Stan announces: “2nd runner up… is… TEXAS!”

All other things being equal, only one of them is a werewolf.

“Derek,” he calls as loud as he dares without drawing attention, hoping he can hear him. “It’s the crown, okay? The bomb is in the crown. You have to find the detonator now. I’ll cover Cheryl.” Stan corrals Stiles and Cheryl up to the front of the stage, and as soon as he’s within an arms-length of her he mutters under his smile, “Cheryl whatever you do don’t take the crown, it’s a bomb.”

“What?”

“Annnnd,” Stan drawls, “the 1st runner up…”

“I need you to trust me, don’t take the crown. There’s wolfsbane in it.”

“…who will have to take the winner's place if, for any reason, she cannot fulfill her duties…”

She looks at him in shock. “Is this a trick?”

“…is…”

“There’s no time, just don’t accept it!”

“NEW JERSEY!”

He and Cheryl hug. “You need to fling that thing as far away from people as possible.”

“Which means, our new Miss United States is Rhode Island’s CHERYL FRASIER!”

He stands back and watches, heart in his throat, as Cheryl steps forward to embrace her destiny. He looks around frantically trying to see any sign of Derek or the perp. Up in the Liberty crown façade he sees his partner and Frank of all people duking it out.

Stan begins singing as he places the crown on her head. Cheryl, much too polite for this situation, seems frozen with confliction about what to do. Derek knocks the detonator out of Frank’s hand and it clangs to the ground. Stiles sighs in relief before he sees Kathy pick it up.

“CHERYL, NOW!”

Startled out of her indecision, Cheryl rips the tiara off her head and uses all of her werewolf strength to toss the tiara into the next county. It explodes as it makes contact with the far stage wall, raining down debris and aerosolized wolfsbane. He and everyone else in the room is knocked off their feet.

“COVER YOUR MOUTHS!” he shouts from the floor, even though his own hearing is shot from the explosion. Lydia recovers her bearings and breaks the mountain ash seal to usher the pack out while Stiles takes off his wig and crawls over to Cheryl. She holds the wig to her face with gratitude and helps him up. He sees Kathy make a break for it out the corner of his eye. “FBI FREEZE!” Derek zooms by him and tackles her, having already handcuffed Frank. Cheryl helps him hobble away on his (probably broken) leg and sets him down.

“Oh my God Gracie, thank you! How—”

“Stiles,” he interrupts with a grin. “My name is Stiles.”


	8. Chapter 8

The next hour is a streak of first aid and containment and explaining over and over again to the girls that he’s a) a cis man, b) an FBI agent, c) not a hero just doing his job and d) not dating Derek, nor giving them Derek’s number. He sees the wolf leading Morningside to the cruiser. “Hey Kathy, I look forward to seeing you in the Miss San Antonio Women's Correctional Facility Pageant!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kathy mutters.

“ _Yes._ ” She stares at him in shock as his partner slams the door shut. Derek full-on swaggers over to him and the girls make themselves scarce with a giggle. He’s too tired to correct them. “Hey handsome, glad to see your eyebrows survived. They’re like 30% of your vocabulary.” He raises one of them in amusement. “How’d you know it was Frank?”

“Had a chat with Stan,” Derek replies, leaning on the ambulance doorframe. “Turns out Frank’s original last name is Morningside. He’s her son.”

“You’re kidding.”

“That’s not all. Frank used to date Clonsky’s sister. Apparently Clonsky owed him a favor, which is how he got involved.”

“Impressive detective work there, Agent Hale.”

He sits down next to Stiles. “Impressive pageantry, Agent Stilinski.”

“Oh yeah?” Stiles leans into the already small space between them. “This does it for you?”

He must have a concussion because he thinks he sees Derek blushing. “You’ve looked worse.”

“I’m covered in dirt and blood in a torn ballgown.” Derek looks up at him smirking. “Oh come on, I don’t dress that terribly.”

“I wasn’t complaining.” He realizes then that Derek’s face is inches from his. The wolf glances down at Stiles’s lips and oh holy shit.

Stiles backs up and points a finger in Derek’s chest. “You think I’m goooorgeous, you want to kiiiiss me,” he whisper-sings with a leer.

Derek rolls his eyes, amused but sad. “Stop.”

“You want to tooouch me, you want to daaaate me, you want to—”

“Not if I’m just a rebound from Lydia.”

Stiles stills. He can see how open Derek has just left himself, can see the depth of his truth in his eyes. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“I know. That was kind of the point.”

Derek likes him. Derek _likes_ him. Derek’s liked him for way longer than he thought possible. This changes everything. How, he doesn’t know yet, but well he has to say _something_. “You wouldn’t… I mean I don’t wanna… you’re not—”

Derek grabs his shoulders. “Stiles.” He stares into him, warm yet bracing for the worst. “Spit it out.”

“Did you know I had a huge crush on you in high school?” Not where he thought he was going with this, but why not.

Derek smiles, back on familiar territory, arms back to his sides. “I figured you always smelled that horny.”

“Likely, but also, during that period of time after Malia but before Lydia I realized just how close we had gotten and how much I missed you but I figured nothing would ever come of it so I forgot it.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because when we started working together, I don’t know, some of those feelings maybe started coming back up? But I mean I was with Lydia which is like all I’d ever wanted but this case made us realize that things haven’t been good for us for a while and I don’t know, this whole thing has just been super confusing.”

“Tell me about it,” huffs Derek.

Stiles slowly reaches out to grab Derek’s hand. “You’re not a rebound. You’re more like a… a missed connection. One that might finally be correctly timed.”

They both turn at Lydia’s shout from across the lot. “STILES, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, kiss the poor guy already I’m halfway to over it!”

Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals: Lydia Martin, best friend extraordinaire. “I—”

Lydia gestures between them insistently with her hand. He turns to Derek with a grin, one that’s returned by the wolf.

“Well, you heard the woman, and woe to any man who doesn’t listen.”

Kissing Derek is simultaneously completely uneventful and captivating. He definitely wants to do way more of that, but he’s exhausted and shell-shocked and still in _fucking_ heels.

“Hey, quick question: this isn’t just because I’ve been dressed as a woman the past week, right?”

Derek smirks. “I mean, it’s not not because of that. Let’s just say I like you no matter what you’re wearing.” He kisses down Stiles’s neck and slides a hand up the slit side of his dress. “Or not wearing.”

“Ohhhh my God, this is how I die. I always knew you’d kill me, one way or another.”

~~~

Derek, ever the perfect gentleman, insisted they part ways for the night. “I want you fully rested so I can wreck you myself when we get back.” His roommate’s already asleep when he gets in, so he takes off his clothes and wig and makeup, gets in the shower, ~~rubs one out~~ , and goes the fuck to sleep.

The next morning, Janessa is already off to the closing brunch by the time he wakes up, which is disappointing, but they can just catch up later. He can tell he’ll want to stay friends with her after this whole thing is over. All the girls really. He considers taking off his acrylics, the last vestige of his time as Gracie Lou Freebush, but he likes the idea of leaving them on just a little longer. (He may or may not get a kick out of how he kinda looks like one of the wolves with them on.)

There’s already several news bulletins and a slew of thinkpieces with his picture plastered all over them, even though he managed to dodge reporters the whole time. The titles are increasingly embarrassing: “Today in Cis Fuckery: Miss United States Saga Continues with Whatever the Hell the FBI Just Pulled”, “Male FBI Agent Puts the ‘Bomb’ in ‘Bombshell’”, “He’s Beauty and He’s Grac(i)e”, “The Man Who Would Be Queen”, “I’m Not Trans I Just Play One on TV”. He forces himself to turn his phone back off. This is gonna be a loooong couple weeks.

He puts on the suit he arrived in Texas in and checks out of his room. He hands his stuff off to the team while he, Derek, and Lydia take one last look at the place that changed their lives, hopefully for the better. Just as they’re about to walk to the van, Rhode Island comes running out to see them. “Stiles! We need you at the brunch, someone says they saw a gun, some guy acting strange, please, hurry!” The four of them race to the convention room just as Janessa is giving a speech. He looks around but doesn’t see danger. He does see the mischievous grins of Derek and Lydia. Oh no. NO, no… He tries to turn around but they stop him in his tracks.

“There he is! Ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished guests of all genders, he saved our lives, saved our pageant, and he looked damn good doing it. I present to you Agent Mieczysław “Stiles” Stilinski of the FBI, this year’s Miss Congeniality! Unless—”

Stiles laughs, shaking his head. Motherfuckers. “It’s fine, I can be Miss for one more day.”

The crowd leaps to its feet and gives him a standing ovation as he approaches the podium. He hugs Janessa with a fond ‘bitch’ and takes the crystal statue she hands him. She places a sash reading ‘Miss Congeniality’ over his head. The applause dies down, anticipating a speech. Well, Stiles is never one to turn down an opportunity to talk.

“I uhh… I don’t know what to say. Which, if you know me is a rarity so, umm… I guess uhh… well I can’t wear this at work!” The crowd laughs, Lydia whispers something beside Derek, Derek blushes. “Uh, never thought anything like this would ever happen to me… I mean I kinda hoped it _wouldn’t_ , but, now that it has… uh… I just wanna say that uhh, I’m very… honoured, and moved, and” oh look now he’s tearing up, whoops “truly touched. And…” he looks out at the sea of women and pageant personnel and his team, people he’s grown so close to over such a short amount of time, and it fills him in a way he never expected. It weirdly gives him hope. _World peace,_ his brain jokes. “I really do want world peace.” The hall bursts into applause once again. He wipes his tears away and clears his throat. “Let’s see, I wanna thank my team for getting me through this week, my friends and family who came all the way out here, and Lydia and Derek over there for keeping me sane. Also, Janessa for not kicking my ass, trans rights!”

He finds himself enveloped in a sea of hugs, and he thinks that perhaps this is what peace feels like.

~~~

He totally wears the sash his first day back at work. Then fucks Derek in it later that night.


End file.
